- Title
- Our state
-
-
- Date
- April 1999
-
-
- Place
- ["North Carolina, United States"]
-
Our state
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tar heel profile
story and photography by Linda C. Graitaliori
Gardeners for Life
The North Carolina Azalea Festival certainly knows
Annie Laurie Cox Willard and Nina Gertrude Cox Lane. As two of Wilmington’s
most respected authorities on gardens, they have given
of their horticultural expertise to help Wilmington blossom into a gardeners paradise.
"Deep in iheir roots.
.Ml flowers keep the light.-
— Theodore Roethke
.Annie Laurie Cox W illard and
Nina Gertrude Cox Lane, two of
Wilmington's most respected
authorities on gardens, can walk
through your yard, take whatever
you cut for them, and — like magic
— turn it into a brilliant creation.
Willard and Lane, mo sisters
bom 1 1 years apart in a family of
U. have given of their horticultural
expertise to help Wilmington blos¬
som into a gardener's paradise.
The North Carolina Azalea
Festival, held in Wilmington each
April, certainly knows the two —
the annual queen holds a bouquet
designed bv Line. The ribbon the
queen cuts to open the Azalea
Garden Tour is flanked by stands of
flowers ananged by both sisters.
Their calling began when Willard
first stuffed a handful of gardenias
into a fruit jar in the rural town of
Dodian — population 35, give oi
take a few — 12 miles from Tabor
City in Columbus County.
"We were at the end of the postal
route, so the |H>st office was in out grand¬
mother's backyard where her kitchen
used to be." Willard says. “Mama had
pretty vases for the roses she grew —
Seven Sisters, IxNila, Aloha — but a fruit
jar seemed to suit the gardenias lx-st."
Recollections of childhood
Bom to Dclphinc Elizabeth Cox and
William Cleveland Cox. the 1 1 sisters and
one brother were taught a love for a
knew what she was going to do to
me! I got under Mama's bed and
kicked and screamed and hit the
springs. Sure enough, next thing 1
knew 1 wasn’t in the bed with my
parents, and she was in my place.
But. that didn’t last too long. When
we grew up. we had a g«xxl time
(together)."
The Coxes taught their children
a respect for nature, responsibility’
for family, and a deep abiding sense
of personal integrity.
"It was always in front of us
because Mama and Daddy lived it."
Lme says. "1 never heard a cross
word between them or a mean
remark against anyone. ... Everyone
looked up to them."
“Mama always had something for
us to do — picking tomatoes, tak¬
ing the cows out to graze, bringing
the ducks in." W illard says. “But we
kept a can of earthworms «lug so if
we got a chance to steal away to the
pond to fish 15 minutes, we <li«l."
"Often as not. Daddy would dive
in Ix’hind us and disappear in the
water," lane savs. "We'd be jumping
up and down and screaming 'cause
he wouldn’t come up. Then, we'd l<x»k
over at a stump, and he’d lx- sitting there
laughing at us. Ii was his way ol teaching
us to lake a joke and get along."
Good people
When Mr. Clove first married and
moved to Wilmington, lu- was an appren¬
tice to a civil engineer. Within a short
time, his mother-in-law Ix-came solely
responsible for the care of two adult,
invalid children.
Sisters and gardeners Ann Willard (left) and Nina
Lane select flowers for the 1999 Azalea Carden Tour.
g«xxl joke and "the wild things."
"My first recollection was a c«x>l night
in May 1918." Willard savs. "I was aware
«»!
the fireplace and people sitting
around, and common sense told my two-
an«l-a-half-yeai4ild brain that I was about
to lose my place on Daddy's arm. Back
then, the baby slept in the bed with
mommy and daddy iil another child
came along and rooted the previous one
out right out. So. I hated my youugct 'is¬
let Dot from the beginning, lx.-cau.se I
April 1999 Our State 23
