Matthew Self

When we started building out the rock garden — the flagstone path, the granite retaining walls, the beds carved into the slope — I made the mistake most new mountain gardeners make: I went to the nursery without a plan and bought whatever looked beautiful. Some of it survived. Most of what survived is native.

Western North Carolina sits in zone 7a, which sounds straightforward until you realize that elevation, slope aspect, and shade can each shift your microclimate by a full zone. What thrives on the sunny south-facing side of the wall dies in the moist shade twenty feet away. After a few seasons of trial and error, here's what's actually earning its place in our beds.

Eastern bluestar (Amsonia tabernaemontana) — This is the one I keep coming back to. Soft powder-blue star-shaped flowers in late spring, feathery willow-like foliage through summer, and then brilliant golden-yellow fall color that rivals anything in the garden. It's fully drought-tolerant once established, deer resistant, and it fills in beautifully without becoming aggressive. The photo from this spring shows it just coming into bloom alongside the rock wall — that blue against the gray granite is the most satisfying combination in the whole yard.

Sempervivum (hens and chicks) — Strictly speaking, sempervivums are European, not native to WNC, but they've earned honorary membership by thriving in the one place nothing else will: the gaps between the granite boulders where there's essentially no soil. They've colonized a whole section of the rock wall and I've done nothing for them. The dark burgundy variety overwinters beautifully and the rosette structure looks good even in February.

Black and blue salvia (Salvia guaranitica) — The dark-leafed, black-stemmed salvia in the upper bed is technically South American, but it performs like a native here — returning reliably each spring, growing to four feet, and blooming deep blue-violet from late summer until hard frost. The hummingbirds are unreasonably enthusiastic about it. It seeds around gently, so I let it naturalize where it wants.

Native azaleas — The pink azaleas along the house foundation are not native — they're the typical hybrid garden variety — but if you're in WNC and want to go native, flame azalea (Rhododendron calendulaceum) is the one to find. Orange, yellow, and red flowers, no fragrance, and blooms two weeks later than the hybrids when everything else has faded. I'm planning to add some to the upper beds this fall.

What the deer ate — Hostas, echinacea, and both times I tried to establish trillium. The rock garden's slope gives some protection but anything in the open is fair game after midnight. The lesson I keep relearning is that deer-resistant isn't the same as deer-proof, and that the most reliable strategy is to plant so much of what they avoid that the losses don't matter.

The plan this year is to add more amsonia, some native columbine in the shadier sections, and a few clumps of Carolina lupine (Thermopsis villosa) on the upper slope where it can get the full sun it wants. The yard project is very much ongoing.

I've been roasting chickens for years — in a cast iron skillet, in a Dutch oven, on a rack in the oven — and they've always been fine. Good, even. But not remarkable. Then I started doing them on the Big Green Egg and now I can't go back.

The method is spatchcock (also called butterfly), which means removing the backbone so the bird lays flat. It sounds more dramatic than it is — a pair of kitchen shears, two cuts along either side of the spine, and you're done. Press the bird flat and it's ready to go. The payoff is that the breast and thigh finish cooking at the same time, which is the fundamental challenge of roasting a whole chicken.

The setup: Get the Egg dialed in at 400°F running indirect — convEGGtor plate in, grill grate on top. I use a mix of lump charcoal and a small chunk of peach or cherry wood for a light smoke that doesn't overpower the chicken. This isn't a long smoke; it's a high-heat roast with a little wood flavor in the background.

The prep: Pat the bird dry — this is the step most people skip and it's the one that matters most for crispy skin. Dry skin browns; wet skin steams. I use either a Meat Church Holy Gospel rub or just go simple: salt, pepper, garlic powder, and whatever fresh herbs are growing. Get some compound butter under the skin over the breast if you want to go the extra mile — softened butter with thyme, lemon zest, and garlic pressed under the skin before cooking.

The cook: Spatchcocked bird goes on the grate skin-side up, no flipping. At 400°F indirect, a standard 4-pound chicken takes 45 to 55 minutes. You're looking for 165°F in the thickest part of the thigh, but the skin will tell you most of what you need to know — when it's deep golden brown and pulling tight, you're close.

The rest: Ten minutes under loose foil. This isn't optional. The juices redistribute and the carry-over heat finishes the job.

The result is a chicken with skin that shatters when you cut into it, meat that's genuinely juicy through to the bone, and a faint smoke that makes you feel like you actually cooked something. I do one of these about every two weeks now. It's become the house standard.

The 3-2-1 method is named for its timing: three hours of smoke, two hours wrapped in foil, one hour unwrapped to set the bark and sauce. It's the most forgiving rib method I know of — the foil phase does the heavy lifting on tenderness and there's enough buffer in the timing that a half-hour either way doesn't ruin anything. Meat Church out of Waxahachie, Texas has become my go-to reference for this cook.

The prep — the night before: Pull the membrane off the bone side of the rack. This step is non-negotiable — that thin silver membrane blocks smoke penetration and you'll never get it off cleanly once it's cooked. Grab it with a paper towel at one end and it peels right off. Rub the bone side with Meat Church Honey Hog Hot, then flip and hit the meat side with a second coat. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate overnight. The rub sets up into a tacky crust that holds smoke and creates the foundation of the bark.

Phase 1 — three hours of smoke: Get the Egg running at 225°F indirect with the convEGGtor in. I used a combination of lump charcoal and apple wood chunks — fruit wood is the right call for pork; hickory or oak can be a little heavy on ribs over a long cook. Ribs go on bone-side down, no touching for three hours. Spritz with apple juice every 45 minutes if you want to keep moisture on the surface and encourage bark development. By the end of hour three you're looking for a deep mahogany color and the beginning of a bark that holds its shape when you press it.

Phase 2 — two hours in foil: This is the Meat Church signature move. Lay out two long sheets of heavy foil and create a bed of brown sugar and butter — a good handful of brown sugar, four or five pats of butter, and a bead of Texas Pepper Jelly (apple and brown sugar flavor) if you can find it. Place the ribs meat-side down on that sweet mixture, fold up three sides of the foil, pour in a quarter cup of apple juice as a braising liquid, then seal the last side. Back on the Egg at 225°F for two hours. The target is 203-205°F internal and the meat pulling back from the bone ends. The foil environment steams the ribs and drives the collagen breakdown that makes them pull-tender.

Phase 3 — one hour unwrapped: Pull the ribs from the foil carefully — there's a lot of hot liquid in there. Sauce both sides with your BBQ sauce of choice; Meat Church uses a 3:1 mix of their favorite BBQ sauce and Texas Pepper Jelly Rib Candy. Back on the grate at 225°F for the final hour, letting the sauce tighten and caramelize into a glaze. This is the phase where the bark firms back up and everything comes together.

After a ten-minute rest the ribs should have a clean pull from the bone — not fall-off, which actually indicates they went too far, but a firm gentle tug that releases clean. These were the best ribs I've made. The Meat Church rubs are worth seeking out; the Honey Hog Hot has exactly the right balance of sweet heat that plays beautifully against the apple and brown sugar in the wrap phase.

Full credit to Meat Church's baby back rib recipe for the core method — I adapted it for the Egg but the bones of the technique are theirs.

There's a particular kind of patience required for low-and-slow barbecue that I didn't know I had until I got the Big Green Egg. It's not passive patience — you're checking temps, adjusting vents, managing the fire — but it forces you to slow down in a way that most weekend activities don't.

The cook started at 6am. Eight-pound bone-in pork shoulder, dry-rubbed the night before with brown sugar, smoked paprika, garlic powder, black pepper, and a healthy dose of kosher salt. The Egg was dialed in at 225°F running lump charcoal with a few chunks of apple wood tucked in for smoke.

The stall hit around 165°F internal — that long plateau where the evaporative cooling of the meat matches the heat input and the temperature just... stops moving. This is where the impatient cook reaches for the foil. I waited it out. Two hours of nothing, then a slow climb to 203°F where the bone slides clean out and the whole thing falls apart in your hands.

Rested for an hour under foil and a couple of towels in a cooler. Pulled it apart and served it plain — no sauce needed when the bark is right. The mountains in the background and a cold beer in hand made it a perfect Sunday.

Kitsuma is one of those trails that has a reputation in Black Mountain — and on this August morning it earned every bit of it. The heat was already building by 9am and the trail wasted no time reminding me why I'd been avoiding the climbing sections all summer.

The Kitsuma trail itself is relentless uphill — tight switchbacks through rhododendron tunnels, loose rocks that find a way under your front wheel at the worst possible moment. By the time I hit the top I was properly cooked. But the descent off the back side is one of the best pieces of singletrack in the area — fast, flowy, with just enough tech to keep you honest.

Nearly 1,700 feet of climbing in 10 miles on a late August day in western NC. The trail won. I came back for more two weeks later.

The flagstone path through the front beds is finally finished and it's changed how I relate to the whole garden. Having a defined route through it means I actually walk it every morning instead of just glancing from the deck.

This spring I went a little overboard. The azaleas along the house are doing exactly what azaleas do in April — absolutely exploding with pink. The sempervivums tucked into the rock wall are spreading nicely into the gaps. The eastern bluestar (amsonia) I planted last fall came back strong — that soft blue against the gray granite is something.

The vegetable situation is more complicated. I put in tomatoes a week before the last frost advisory because I was impatient. Covered them with frost cloth and got lucky. The zucchini is already doing what zucchini does. Neighbors beware.

The deer pressure this year has been significant. I've given up on hostas in any unprotected area. The raised beds are doing fine but everything at ground level is fair game after dark.

Dupont has a trail network that looks manageable on the map and is absolutely not manageable when you're deep in it without cell service and every junction looks like the last one. This was supposed to be a straightforward loop. It became an adventure.

The forest itself is stunning — hardwoods, waterfalls, granite domes, and singletrack that ranges from flowy gravel paths to chunky technical descents. The problem is that the trail intersections are numerous and not always obvious, and on a September day when you're tired and a little dehydrated, left and right start to lose meaning.

I added about 3 miles I didn't plan on. The good news is that those extra miles included some of the best trail in the park — a long ridge traverse with views out toward the south that I wouldn't have found if I'd stayed on route. Getting lost in Dupont has its upsides.

Rattlesnake Lodge sits at about 3,100 feet on the slopes of Snyder Mountain just off the Blue Ridge Parkway north of Asheville. The trail gains most of its 900 feet in a fairly direct assault up the mountain, which in late October with the leaves mostly down means you're working hard but getting paid in views the whole way.

The lodge itself is long gone — burned in the 1920s — but the stone foundations, cisterns, and terraced garden walls are still there and remarkably intact. You can spend a while exploring the footprint of what was apparently a substantial summer estate.

The Mountains-to-Sea Trail passes through on its way across North Carolina. The fall color that year was exceptional — peak timing, warm afternoon light, the kind of day that makes you feel lucky to live within driving distance of this.

November riding in Pisgah is its own thing. The crowds are gone, the leaves are down so you can actually see the ridge lines through the trees, and the air is cold enough that you're working to stay warm on the climbs and freezing on the descents. Gloves are non-negotiable.

Spencer Gap trail is a classic Pisgah climb — a long, steady grind up to the gap on a jeep road before things get more interesting. Mark set a pace that was slightly too fast for comfort and exactly fast enough to be satisfying.

The descent back down was fast and loose — the kind of Pisgah riding where the trail surface changes every thirty seconds and you're making micro-decisions constantly. A proper late-season ride.