Standing on the north side of a Swannanoa, NC hillside last fall in a swirl of snowflakes, I got into quite the discussion (that’s Quaker for major disagreement) about using appropriate plantings for a well-integrated, successful landscape plan. This landscape designer from Los Angeles, California refused to believe that I would walk away from a lucrative job offer rather than agree to plant a clump of paper birch on the north side of a North Carolina mountain top. I explained to him that it would not survive in this microclimate and he scoffed saying that this was “ridiculous” and that he uses them all the time in Hollywood. I was incredulous! You keep paper birches alive in southern California?! Well, apparently you can, if you can provide extensive irrigation and are willing to hand pick the leaves off in the fall, since the tree is too confused to drop them naturally.

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