By this we mean Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, and vicinity.  We will be covering gardens, plant nurseries, hotels, restaurants, and more as we have time.  Culling the best from North Carolina’s capital region is a subtle task, because the “best” is not self-evident.  The region’s most important venture-capitalists do not strut their stuff.  Often the best restaurants are unknown to local critics.  The nicest barber shop is always at the other end of town, the best auto-repairman is out in the woods, and a half-deserted town--called Bynum--of amusing sculptures is well apart from just about everything.

Driving Around Station--Oddly enough, you do have to do too much driving, even in this small state of small towns.  Where possible, you want to stick to the backroads, since the interstates are crowded with breakneck truckers out to cross the continent today.   The right backroad music here is on WNCU (FM 90.7) which mostly consists of intelligent jazz.  Attached to North Carolina Central University, this station exemplifies how North Carolina's lesser known colleges deliver as much or more value than their bigger brand name cousins.  They are more focused, trying to do one or two things well, not trying to be comprehensive with limited resources.  See www.wncu.com.

13. Best Vest-Pocket Arboretum
Imagine a vest-pocket Arboretum, just one square block, jam-packed with rare and exotic trees, and you have the Coker Arboretum in downtown Chapel Hill.  Right in the heart of the UNC campus, it is a superior collection of conifers, broad-leafed evergreens, and deciduous trees and shrubs, some nearly a century old, having been planted in 1903 when Professor William Chambers Coker designed the arboretum.  A visit yields rewards in any season: In winter, the sasanqua camellias and prunus mume defy the bleak grey with their pink and white blossoms; in spring the Davidia involucrata or dove tree is covered with white-winged blooms; and in fall the exquisite shades of red, gold and bronze suffuse the entire 5-acre block.  This is a good place to see the Asian cousins of native Southeastern trees, such as the Chinese fringetree and cornus kousa.  The Coker Arboretum is always open.  For more information, contact: The North Carolina Botanical Garden, CB3375, Totten Center, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3375.  Telephone: 919-962-0522.  Website: www.unc.edu/depts/ncbg.

12. Best Place for Mouth-Searing Gumbo
If it's been too long since you've dipped a spoon in a bowl of luscious New Orleans gumbo--and if you don't mind, as Emeril says, "kicking it up a notch"--you can take solace in the spicy gumbo currently on the lunch menu at Acme Food and Beverage Co. in Carrboro.  Heavy on the tomato and more peppery than the Louisiana-style, this is still a good, if non-traditional, bowl of gumbo, so full of fresh shrimp and plump oysters that one can almost forgive the paucity of okra and rice.  But hurry, because it may only stay on the menu while we're having the kind of tropical days that remind us of New Orleans, when the temperature and humidity both hit 98.  Acme's deep-hued rooms with their sleek lighting fixtures and ceiling fans, and vibrant local paintings offer a cool counterpoint to the sweltering grime outside.  But pick your dishes and waiters carefully.  Contact: Acme Food and Beverage Co., 110 East Main Street, Carrboro.  Telephone: 919-929-2263.

11. Best Vanilla Ice Cream in the Triangle
Trendy eateries have been pushing the notion of "ice cream" to its outer limits--any day now we'll be offered a scoop of wasabi-mint or pumpkin-cashew--but it has become almost impossible to get really good vanilla ice cream.  The simplest is not only the best, but it is also the hardest to make, because no disguises are permitted.  The essential ingredients, just thick cream, sugar and vanilla--must be in exactly the right proportions and churned and frozen to the perfect consistency.

A wide ranging, very personal survey of vanilla ice creams in the Triangle has turned up a winner.  Why are we not surprised that a fabulous vanilla ice cream can be found at Nana's, one of our favorite Durham restaurants?  Chef Scott Howell skips the eggs, using only the essential trio of ingredients, to produce a luxuriously rich, intensely flavored, seed-flecked vanilla ice cream that brings back memories of the impossibly perfect hand-cranked ice creams of childhood.  Whether you enjoy it atop molten chocolate lava cake or blueberry peach crumble, or simply as a trio of perfectly plain scoops, this is the one you've been searching for.

If you feel you must order something before desert, Howell is a wizard when it comes to fish, which rightly dominates the menu.  Recently, we had a superb grilled yellow fin tuna, meaty and cooked just medium rare, atop a tangle of lovely summer vegetables--tiny asparagus, silvered zucchini, cherry tomatoes--with mini-ravioli.   Other winners have included an appetizer of divers scallops (alas, only three, although they were big) with lobster-sherry vinaigrette, and sockeye salmon over sauteed sweet corn, fennel and spinach. 

The newly redesigned dining rooms--one with saffron-hued walls, the other with deep apricot, both punctuated with splashy, brightly covered--are airy and comfortable, but our truly favorite spot is the ultra-cool bar, which attracts a sparky crowd and has more elbow room.  Contact: Nana's, 2514 University Drive, Durham.  Telephone: 919-493-8545.

10. Best New Nursery of Note
Just north of Hillsborough is the Triangle's newest nursery of note: Singing Springs.  Owner Pam Baggett is into self-confessed "zone denial," and her catalogue features choice perennials and uncommon tender selections that are probably the wave of the future, given evidence of global warming in North Carolina.  She has a clear predilection for tropical color combinations, any one of which would save a tasteful but boring garden from the dictates of the color police.  Singing Springs has 35 selections of coleus, including electric specimens such as "Black Magic" (purple leaf with lime-green edging) and "Pineapple Queen" (acid-yellow foliage with red-purple veins).  There are red-streaked bananas, giant orange-flowered cannas on pink stems and the white, saucer-like moonflowers beloved of Georgia O'Keefe.  We like many of her suggestions for combining different plants: soft lilac verbena "Abbeville" interwoven with silvery artemesia "Powis Castle" and violet and white "Dallas Red" and coleus "Purple Emperor" for "the garden equivalent of an erupting volcano."

Baggett, who also lectures and writes about gardening, has quieter, but no less appealing plants for shady locations, from the orchid-like toad lily to wild gingers and heucheras, such as the black and silver-veined "Velvet Night."  Some of those freckled English hellebores will surely find their way into our woodland garden this fall.  Singing Springs sells by mail order; local residents may pick up their plants by appointment on Sunday afternoons.  (This is a worthwhile drive, as it offers the chance to see Baggett's state-of-the-art greenhouses, which are filled with unbelievably lush, healthy plants.)  Contact: Singing Springs Nursery, 8802 Wilderson Road, Cedar Grove, NC 27231-9324.  Telephone: 919-732-9403.

9. Best Native Plant Nursery
Years ago, when Americans were still in abject thrall to the English garden and all its lovely but often impossible-to-grow flowers, Niche Gardens was one of the few nurseries trumpeting the down-home virtues of native plants.  If natives have gone mass-market--even Home Depot sells purple coneflower and wild columbine--it's largely due to the efforts of Niche and others of its ilk to educate gardeners about the plants that are so well-adapted to our indigenous soils and climates.

Although many of the commoner natives are available elsewhere at lower prices, Niche continues to be an excellent source of unusual, very desirable plants.   Owner Kim Hawks has, for instance, beautiful native azaleas, such as the fragrant "Choice Cream," or the rose-pink Piedmont Azalea, or the brilliant yellow Florida Flame, any of which would rescue a spring garden from the grip of the lurid, day-glo cultivars that so dominate the South.  The nursery also carries many non-natives, clearly marked as such in the catalogue, that will thrive in our area.   Two favorites are the 7-foot tall Formosa lily, with masses of white trumpet-like blossoms, and dianthus "Grandiflorus," which adds dazzle to our summer beds with its rich pink blossoms.

A visit to Niche, which is open for retail sales most days throughout the year, is especially valuable as the display gardens offer the opportunity to see plants on site, often combined in extremely tempting ways.  Contact: Niche Gardens, 1111 Dawson Road, Chapel Hill, NC 27516.  Telephone: 919-967-0078.   Website: www.nichegdn.com.

8. Best Source of Rare Trees
Our first foray to Camellia Forest one wintry February afternoon took us into an enchanted woodland.  Towering pines sheltered camellias, many tall as trees, covered with stunning crimson, pink and white blossoms.  Rare edgeworthia, the Japanese paper plant, arched graceful braches hung with golden bell-like blossoms, while prunus mume, the winter-blooming Japanese apricot, scented the air with its intoxicating perfume.  It was like stumbling upon a slightly surreal world in which a magician had waved his wand under bleak, icy skies and brought forth a glimpse of spring. 

These days, the magicians, Kai Mei Parks and her son, David, work their wonders at a more prosaic location, but Camellia Forest remains a source of uncommon trees and shrubs, many discovered in Asia.  There are well over 100 cold-hardy camellias, some from China, others developed by Robert Parks, a UNC professor and husband of Kai Mei.  These include fall- and spring-blooming cultivars, such as "Survivor," a single white-flowering shrub hardy to -9 degrees and which was the only plant still thriving after a siege of artic weather some years ago.  The nursery has many Japanese cedars, flowering apricots, and viburnums, as well as one-of-a-kind rare specimens.  Often the plants are very small, which requires a certain vision and level of patience many do not possess in these days of instant gardens. 

Camellia Forest sells mostly by mail but is open by appointment and on a few weekends in the fall and spring; local gardeners should beg or borrow a pickup truck, since one can often find beautiful oversized plants too large for shipping.   Contact: Camellia Forest, 9701 Carrie Road, Chapel Hill, NC 27516.  Telephone: 919-968-0504.  Website: www.camforest.com.

7. Best Nursery Catalogue
Tony Avent stays up nights producing what is surely the wackiest catalogue in the nursery business.  In 1999, the theme was "Farmageddon: Revenge of the Perennials."   The cover featured a pot-shaped flying saucer beaming up the best and brightest perennials.  This year's opus, naturally, is "Y2 Mailorder" and offers a list of "millenium entendres" on the back page, such as the newspaper headline that read "Cold Wave Linked to Temperatures."  Avent is as in love with words as he is with the cutting-edge cultivars he sells at his Raleigh nursery, Plant Delights.  Superlatives flow like water from an open main, and the text is liberally sprkinled with exclamations such as "Wow!" and "FABULOUS!"   There's not a dull sentence in the entire 90-page catalogue, which can be had, by the way, for "10 stamps or a box of chocolates" (i.e. free).

Avent's avowed mission is to introduce "great American natives" to the nursery trade.   This is the place to come for hostas, 172 of them, from "Abba Dabba Do" (his own 1993 introduction) to "Zounds."  There are arisaemas (cobra lilies), salvias, native grasses, butterfly bushes and verbenas.  Like a lot of adventurous gardeners, Avent pushes the envelope with tender perennials to see what he can get away with: Cannas are a particular favorite, as are hardy gingers and coleus.   But secretly we suspect he's most passionate about bizarre plant forms.  To wit, the following description of the peony leaf voodoo lily: "...the wildest flower you've ever seen ... looks like a 'Peter Pepper' on steroids!  Let's try again ... it looks like a purple dust ruffle on top of a short pedestal, inside of which is a distorted purple human brain ... have you watched enough sci-fi channel to get the picture?"   As he notes elsewhere, "it doesn't get much weirder than this."

Plant Delights sells mail order, although six weekends a year Avent allows devotees to troll the aisles of his greenhouses, snatching up the objects of their own desire.  Go early to get the voodoo lilies.  Contact: Plant Delights Nursery, 9241 Sauls Road, Raleigh, NC 27603.  Telephone: 919-772-4794.  Website: www.plantdelights.com.

6. Best Governor's Garden
The extraordinary gardens at Montrose, a 19th-century estate in Hillsborough once owned by the Governor of North Carolina, are a magnet for plant cognoscenti as far off as England and Japan; curiously, though, they have remained a secret to gardeners living just a few miles away.  Instead of succumbing to the lure of history, plantswoman Nancy Goodwin has spent the last two decades creating a dynamic, ever-changing series of gardens that feature new, often rare plants and push the envelope of cutting-edge combinations.  In late spring, the dianthus walk in front of the white, two-story house bursts with lavish blooms in all shades of pink, crimson, and white.  In summer, antique roses and clematis festoon the lath house; below it, the purple and orange garden pulsates with hot color.  In winter, hardy cyclamen carpet the ground, while huge stands of hellebores line the driveway.  Regular visits to this garden will provide an education for the novice and an exciting source of new ideas for the more knowledgeable.  Open for tours by appointment.  Fee: $6 per person.   Contact:  Montrose, P.O. Box 957, Hillsborough, NC 27278.  Telephone: 919-732-7787.

5. Best Federalist House and Grounds
North Carolina lacks the gracious plantation architecture that is a hallmark of its more prosperous neighbors to the north and south.  But just down the road from Montrose is a Federal-era house of the most appealing sort.  Commissioned in 1814 by a Scottish merchant, Ayr Mount was occupied by his descendents for the next 170 years, until noted preservationist and former Chairman of The Equitable, Richard Jenrette, rescued it from slow decline.  Now a museum, the handsomely restored, vaguely Palladian brick house invites the visitor to linger in its well-proportioned, high-ceilinged rooms.  Many feature fine architectural woodwork; all are filled with antiques, some original to the home and some from Mr. Jenerette’s own collection of Duncan Phyfe pieces.  The romantic grounds offer lovely vistas down to the Eno River and to the hills beyond; nature trails are open for hiking.  For more about Ayrmont, see Mr. Jenrette’s new book, Adventures with Old Houses (Wyrick and Company).  To visit, contact: Ayr Mount, 376 St. mary’s Road, Hillsborough, NC 27278.  Telephone: 919-732-6886.

4. Best Rose Garden
North of Hillsborough lies Chatwood, an 1808 Quaker farmhouse which once served as a tavern and inn.  The current owners have restored and improved the old gardens, which are particularly beautiful in late spring.  The Woodland Garden is abloom with lush plantings of camellias, hellebores, columbines, Virginia bluebells, and azaleas.  In the Sanctuary and Williamsburg-style Walled Rose Garden, one can see antique roses planted about fifty years ago; many were grown from cuttings taken from gardens and gravesites in the region.   Other planting areas offer appealing combinations that can easily be recreated at home:  starry purple allum with achillea, for instance, or velvety gray lamb’s ears with white nepeta and salvia “Blue Queen.”  For tours by appointment, contact Chatwood, 1900 Faucette Mill Road, Hillsborough, NC 27278.  Telephone: 919-644-6058.

3. Best Native Plant Gardens
One of the state’s great horticultural treasures is the nationally famed North Carolina Botanical Garden in Chapel Hill.  Dedicated to native plants--and others that will thrive here--the 600-acre garden features a multitude of habitats, from the mountains to the coastal plain, and the 4,700  plants that grow in them.  In late winter, woodland trails wind through beds of emerald-green mosses; in spring, other trails bloom with trillium and flame azalea.  There are fern gardens, a carnivorous-plant collection, and a wildflower border.  On a different plane entirely is the Hubbard Reeves herb garden, with a to-die-for fence of espaliered apple trees, a green and silver knot garden, and plantings of lavender that will survive the muggy weather of the southeast.  A reference library, knowledgeable staff members, and daily plant sales make this one of the Triangle’s truly great resources.  Contact: The North Carolina Botanical garden, CB 3375, Totten Center, Chapel Hill, NC 275990-3375.  Telephone: 919-962-0522.  Website: www.unc.edu/depts/ncbg.

2. Best Big Arboretum
J.C. Raulston, the late, well-loved curator of the arboretum at North Carolina State University, had friends all over the world, and sometimes when strolling among the 9,000 woody plants on the eight-acre grounds, it seems that they all sent him their favorite cuttings.  There is no better place in North Carolina to see in-depth collections of particular types of trees.  Magnolia-lovers will delight in the cluster of 165 specimens, many of which are in glorious bloom in late February and march.  There are equally extensive collections of redbuds and conifers, as well as many exquisite native species.   This is a collection designed for study, and trees sometimes seem to have plunked down without regard for the vistas they create.   For artistry, see the White Garden, modeled on Vita Sackville-West’s famed garden at Sissinghurst, and the 450-foot, award winning perennial border.  Just prior to his death in an auto accident, Raulston and Dr. Kim Tripp wrote, The Year in Trees (Timber Press, 1995), which describes the 150 vest trees and shrubs for our area.  Contact: The J.C. Raulston Arboretum at NCSU, 4301 Beryl Road, Raleigh, NC.  Telephone: 919-515-3125.  Website: www.arb.ncsu.edu.

1. Best Japanese Garden
For those whose sensibilities lean toward the formal garden, the seventy-year-old, classically Italianate Sarah P. Duke Gardens in Durham possess a handsome geometry.  A stunning wistera pergola opens onto a classic American estate vista down a central axis with magnificent trees in the distance.  Elsewhere ranks of roses and peonies bloom in curved terraces.  This is the only public garden ever created by noted American landscape designer Ellen Biddle Shipman and one of the few that remain more or less extant.  Yet the newest part of the garden may be even more appealing in our Zen-oriented times: the twenty-acre Culberson Asiatic Arboretum features special collections of deciduous magnolia and Japanese maples, and it pairs Asian trees with their American cousins.  The 550 species are interspersed with naturalistic stonework, bridges, and bamboo fences that one imagines could be transposed, with a little heft and creativity, into one’s own backyard.  Be sure not to miss the Bloomquist Garden, which features over 900 species of native Southern wildflowers, and the border designed by Edith Eddleman, where unexpected mixtures of cactus, phlox, and hellebores push the envelope in a most delectable way.  Contact: The Sarah P. Duke Gardens, Duke University, Durham, NC.  telephone: 919-684-3691.  Website: www.hr.duke.edu/dukegardens/dukegardens.html.

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