Brevard College (or at least their social media team) recently took a stroll at Silvermont — check out this reel!
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Email: info@silvermont.org
Take a stroll through Silvermont, courtesy of Brevard College
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NC’s First Provincial Congress to be commemorated at Silvermont on August 25
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Deadfall day scheduled for August 3
Friends of Silvermont will be holding its regular Deadfall Day on Saturday, August 3 from 9 AM to about 11 AM at Silvermont Park. Please join other intrepid and like-minded volunteers as we continue to improve the grounds at Silvermont. We will be doing some weeding and continuing the work on the new nature path we plan to complete this year.
Bring your favorite gardening tools and gloves and meet at the parking lot. The forecast calls for sunny skies with temperatures creeping up toward 80 degrees so dress appropriately and bring water.
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Deadfall and cleanup day for Silvermont Park scheduled for July 6
Friends of Silvermont will be holding our monthly deadfall and clean up day at Silvermont Park on Saturday, July 6 from 9-11 am. Projects include work on a new woodland path and general weeding and cleanup in other areas of the park. Volunteers are encouraged to bring gardening tools, gloves, and water. We’ll meet in the parking lot at 9 am — come join us!
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Deadfall and clean-up day scheduled for June 1
The next monthly Friends of Silvermont Deadfall Day is scheduled for 9 AM to about 11 AM this Saturday, June 1, at Silvermont Park. Please come and join other volunteers as we tidy things up. We will pick up fallen branches, do some weeding and continue planning and the early preparations for the new nature path we hope to complete this year.
Bring your favorite gardening tools and gloves and meet at the parking lot for continued spring cleaning and other park improvements.
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Summer@Silvermont Membership Event June 23
Friends of Silvermont will be holding a membership event at the mansion from 2-4 pm on Sunday, June 23. Summer@Silvermont will feature children’s activities, tours of the mansion museum, and live music. It’s also a great time to join Friends of Silvermont with a modest contribution of $15 for an individual membership or $25 for a family membership. Even better, Pelican’s Snoballs will be at the park and Friends of Silvermont is providing free snoballs for our members.
It’s a great opportunity to learn more about Silvermont, our plans for improving it, and volunteer opportunities. Come join us!
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Ever-changing Spring Flowers at Silvermont
Spring is a time of rapid change at Silvermont, as a succession of flowers and shrubs burst into bloom. Some real beauties were on show this week as Friends of Silvermont Board member Joni Pavlik took a stroll on the paved path around the mansion. It was a little rainy, which of course the flowers love!
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Deadfall and Clean-up Day Scheduled for May 11
The monthly deadfall and clean-up day for Silvermont Park is scheduled from 9-11 am on Saturday, May 11. It’s spring, and our little weedy friends are popping up all over the park. Come join other volunteers as we tidy things up. Bring your favorite gardening tools and gloves and meet at the parking lot for a little spring cleaning, with a focus on weed removal.
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Pumpkin Fest to take gap year in 2024
Friends of Silvermont, the all-volunteer non-profit group that stages the popular annual Pumpkin Fest at Silvermont Park, has decided to postpone Pumpkin Fest 2024 to allow time to thoroughly review all aspects of the event to make it more efficient and sustainable.
“The Friends of Silvermont Board and our core volunteer group are, sadly, not immune to the passage of time,” stated Erik Rasmussen, past president of Friends of Silvermont. He continued, “Too much of what we know and what we do as an organization is related to the experience of a small group of people who have been leading and supporting it for many years, more than a decade for some. Facing this reality, we have been actively working on the sustainability of this organization at many levels.”
It takes a massive nearly year-long volunteer effort to put on the four weekends of Pumpkin Fest. Increasingly, this effort has fallen mainly on a group of 12-15 people, mostly in their 60s, 70s, and 80s. Inevitably, they are suffering volunteer burnout due to contributing hundreds of volunteer hours prior to and during the event. Taking a gap year in 2024 is necessary to continue Pumpkin Fest in its current form. During that time, the organization will evaluate the event and document processes so that additional core volunteers can be trained. Additionally, the Pumpkin Fest team will devise ways to simplify the setup and takedown procedures.
In lieu of Pumpkin Fest in 2024, Friends of Silvermont is planning to have a small, one day event at Silvermont during the Heart of Brevard’s Halloweenfest. The two groups are defining details for that event, but it will be during the daytime and have Halloween-themed activities for kids, mansion museum tours, and music.
Pumpkin Fest 2023 was a very successful fundraiser, raising 40% more money to support Silvermont as compared to 2022. The extra proceeds from 2023 are sufficient to continue Friends of Silvermont’s work supporting the park in 2024 and 2025.
There will be a lot of disappointment within Transylvania County and beyond due to this postponement. The Pumpkin Fest team is already conducting a thorough review of the event and all supporting aspects. They have already identified several improvements that will ease the burden on core volunteers. “Now we have the benefit of time to think about what we do, how we do it and how to document and pass along that knowledge so that Pumpkin Fest can be better than ever in 2025 and continue as a Transylvania County tradition for many years to come,” said Rasmussen.
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Deadfall and Clean-up Day Scheduled for April 13
Friends of Silvermont will be holding our monthly deadfall and clean-up day this Saturday, April 13, from 10 am to about 12 noon. Our main project is to do some weeding in the mulch bed along East Main Street.
We have also recently obtained three small trees to plant as part of our ongoing effort to add native species to replace lost trees and judiciously beautify the park in honor of Earth Day. We have identified possible locations for these trees, but still must confirm that there are no utilities in the way. Final approval from the County is pending so we do not know if we can put them in the ground in the desired locations this Saturday. Regardless of whether we plant the trees or not, there is still plenty more to do.
Please bring your favorite gardening tools and gloves and join us. We’ll be meeting in the front parking lot along East Main Street at 10 am.
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Reader’s Theatre Performance at Silvermont Entrances Audience
The Reader’s Theatre is one of the activity groups that has met regularly at Silvermont for several years. They convene weekly on Mondays from 1-2:30 pm and read scenes, monologues, poetry, essays, and sometimes full-length plays on a variety of topics. Everyone is welcome to join in, either as a reader or just to listen.
The group occasionally performs for audiences, and its most recent performance was on March 25 at Silvermont. Ably directed by Julie Vorus and Alan Edick, the group has been rehearsing short comic pieces for several weeks, culminating in a 90-minute show presented as a benefit performance for Silvermont. Twelve talented local performers read scenes set in the Department of Motor Vehicles, to Cinderella’s therapist’s waiting room, to a saloon in the old west, and many places in between.
Reader’s theatre is a great way to stretch your acting muscles without having to memorize lines or remembering stage directions. If you’d like to be part of the fun, drop in on any Monday from 1-2:30 pm.
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Spring Comes to Silvermont
The early bloomers are the first to remind us of the promise of spring — the hellebores, the periwinkles, and soon after, the explosion of daffodils all over the grounds. The shrubs and trees get into the act, with Bodnant viburnum, forsythia, star magnolia, and red maple not even waiting for their leaves before bursting into flower. Native or not, wildflower, shrub, and tree respond to warmer weather and longer days, painting a multi-hued backdrop at Silvermont.
The cast of characters changes weekly, with the daffodils bowing out and new spring ephemerals making their entrances in the woodland garden and elsewhere on the grounds. Come have a look!
Deadfall day scheduled for March 2 during National Invasive Species Awareness Week
Did you know that February 26-March 3, 2024 is National Invasive Species Awareness Week? Well, now you’re aware!
According to Raven Invasive Plant Management, a company that has performed multiple days of work at Silvermont removing invasive species:
Invasive species impact everyone and destroy nature. They cause harm to our economy, environment, human and planetary health. They limit land and water use, make our forests more susceptible to fire and threaten endangered species. It’s estimated they cost the US $120 billion annually, and non-monetary losses to biodiversity and precious resources are immeasurable. This is a great time to join in learning about and raising awareness of the problems and focusing on solutions.
A recent inventory of plants at Silvermont identified at least 15 species of invasive non-native understory ornamentals, trees, ground cover, and vines growing wild on the grounds. Over the years, Friends of Silvermont volunteers have battled back, and Carrie Blair and Transylvania County have funded larger-scale efforts.
One way to observe NISAW is to come to our monthly deadfall and park clean-up day, next scheduled for Saturday, March 2 from 10 am-noon. While our cleanup tasks vary from month to month, we often have some folks working on removing English ivy and other non-native invasives. If you can join us this Saturday, bring your favorite gardening tools and meet in the parking lot at 10 am.
For more information about invasive species, Raven recommends checking out the NISAW website, the website for the North American Invasive Species Management Association, and Raven’s website and Facebook pages. For a list of invasive species in our state, check out the North Carolina Extension Service’s list in the North Carolina Extension Gardener’s Plant Toolbox.
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Invasive plants removal continues
Now you see it …
Now you don’t!
Recently, Raven Invasive Plant Management completed a two-day project to remove invasive plants, particularly English ivy, from the south side of the park. This is the latest salvo in a war against invasive and non-native plants at Silvermont, and was generously funded by Carrie Blair and Transylvania County.
Workers from Raven pulled piles of English ivy and other unwelcome plants and piled them along the walking path, prior to filling up a dumpster over the course of two days. The timing was excellent, as it followed a deadfall day in which Friends of Silvermont volunteers removed woody debris from the area to be worked on. Spring wildflowers are beginning to bloom in the park, and in the long run they will benefit from not having to compete against the non-native interlopers.
This is just one of the grounds projects planned for Silvermont in 2024. We’ll be telling you more about them as plans are solidified, so stand by for more good news.
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Deadfall Day scheduled for February 3
OK, third time is the charm! After two attempts to schedule a deadfall and park cleanup day in January, it looks like we’ll finally get our first cleanup for 2024 accomplished on Saturday, February 3 from 10 am-noon.
The plan is to work on general cleanup of fallen branches and limbs in the area of the picnic shelter. Efforts to remove invasive plants will focus on this area in the next few months, so neatening things up will give us a head start. Depending on the number of attendees, there are a couple of other small projects to tackle.
Participants are encouraged to dress for the weather, as the forecast calls for sunny skies and temperatures in the mid-40s. Bring gloves, tools, and gardening equipment if possible. Some tools will be available at the park.
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