It was a thoughtful and interesting invitation I had received from my friend: would I assist in guiding visitors around her garden in downtown Savannah? The annual garden tour had asked my friend, who often writes about plants and gardening, among many other subjects, for her regular columns in the Savannah Morning News. 

Oh my, where to start? Like most of you, I was gobsmacked by Hurricane Matthew. He was simply not kind to our gardens – or our homes. Cleaning up afterwards was overwhelming, wasn't it? The storm came at us with wind, copious rain, a salty storm surge and, ouch, it toppled large trees, crushing our homes, our shrubbery and everything else under a canopy of branches. The clean up, besides being exhaustive, will be lengthy and it will take even longer to evaluate the true extent of the damage to our gardens.

My friend and I were already planning to leave town for the weekend. The SC Native Plant Symposium was being held in Clemson at the same time Hurricane Matthew was blasting the South Carolina coast. After getting the necessary travel preparations finished we loaded up my gold Trail Blazer and headed for higher ground. Even as we left the lowcountry and got “up the country” fall was evident in the yellows, reds, and gold on the sides of the road.