Garden still blossoms as sisters age

A pack of students jogs down Gimghoul Road.

As they pass a small white house flanked with a sea of azaleas and tulips, they shout in chorus, “Your garden is beautiful!”

Bernice Wade waves and thanks them from her perch on the porch.

A moment later, a woman rounds the corner of the house, completing her full tour of the garden.

“I couldn’t let a year go by without coming,” she tells Wade.

Within the next hour, three more visitors come to soak in the colors and fragrances.

For Wade and her sister, Barbara Stiles — who are the hearts, minds and hands behind “the twins’ garden” — this is actually a quiet spell.

“There are times when the garden is never free of people,” Wade said.

The sisters hit their 90th year Wednesday, celebrating with a big garden party this past weekend. Gardening keeps them young, Wade said.

“I doubt I’ll be able to do it when I’m 100, but I sure would like to be able to do it when I’m 100.”

In the past two weeks, several thousand people have come to tour the twins’ garden during its springtime peak, which lasts for about three weeks in April.

During this vibrant time, the sisters place a small sign in the front lawn reading “The Garden is Open” to encourage people to enjoy the blossoms in their days of perfection.

But the yard was not always so heavenly.

When Wade bought the house in 1944, there was a victory garden of cucumber and corn in the front yard. She hired a friend to hand-plow the yard with a mule and wagon, planting black-eyed peas that later would be plowed under as fertilizer.

Around that time, the UNC alumna and her husband went to the annual North Carolina Azalea Festival in Wilmington. Wade, raised in the high desert of Arizona, had never seen azaleas.

She was enthralled. They loaded as many as they could into their car, and thus began the famed garden.

Stiles joined her sister after retiring in 1978. “(The garden) just kept growing after I came here, and we both had a lot more time to work on it,” Stiles said.

Through the years, the sisters have formed close relationships with many students who are regulars in their yard.

Many students take their parents on these annual spring visits. Families often respond by giving Wade and Stiles an azalea when Commencement rolls around.

One couple even mailed an unusual variety of the plant from Louisiana.

“We really are so surprised when that happens,” said Wade. “I hope someday they’ll be back and say, ‘Where (does) that flower grow?’”

Students often want to help out in the garden, and the sisters gratefully give them a pair of clippers.

“For some of them, it’s kind of like a touch of home, somebody to talk to and the garden,” Wade said.

The sisters’ oasis also is frequented by garden clubs, senior groups, elementary school classes and University classes.

One drama teacher took her class to 723 Gimghoul Rd. and asked her students to act out the personalities of different flowers.

“It was interesting how some of them would choose these little beautiful flowers hidden back there,” Wade said. “And some would choose big, gaudy flowers. We loved seeing their choices.”

The garden is also popular among community members as a backdrop for momentous photographs. The spring buds have framed everything from wedding parties and confirmations to Easter and prom pictures.

One family has taken photographs posed in the garden in their Easter best for 17 years.

The community treasure has begun to gain statewide fame as well, gracing the covers of both Carolina Gardener and Our State magazines. The sisters are just happy to be able to share their passion.

“We did it because we love gardening,” Wade said. “We found that other people love it, too.”

Interest in the garden doesn’t fade along with the azaleas. In two weeks, day lilies and peonies will bloom.

“There’s always some new stage coming along,” Stiles said. “It’s exciting to watch the progress of spring.”

Contact the Features Editor at features@unc.edu.