All that the De Harts ask of visitors is that they sign this guest book and refrain from carrying firearms, smoking, or littering.

A May 12^th article in the Raleigh News & Observer inspired a Mother’s Day trip to Franklin County with my daughters to explore De Hart Botanical Gardens.   The gardens are on over 90 acres of woodlands belonging to a retired Louisburg College professor and open to all.  Developing the gardens over the course of five decades has been a labor of love and one that, due to the professor’s generosity, is available for everyone to enjoy.

We drove to Louisburg in hopes that its charms might win us over but a small town on a Sunday afternoon is pretty much a ghost town so we gave up on any expectation of finding a locally owned restaurant for a late lunch.  We did spot Franklin County’s Republican headquarters in downtown Louisburg and a hand drawn sign in the window that proclaimed “Socialism is trickle up poverty.”  If we couldn’t find actual food, at least that statement gave me food for thought.

Leaving Louisburg behind, we settled on having our Mother’s Day lunch at Carolina Ale House, a chain restaurant along the highway.  It felt like a fitting end to our somewhat depressing Franklin County excursion, a trip that was salvaged only by knowing there are people like Allen de Hart managing to preserve some of our state’s natural beauty amidst the ugliness of commercialization and sprawl.

May 13, 2012 – County #3 – Franklin