DURHAM--Arriving at Duke Gardens a few minutes early for an appointment at Blomquist Gardens allowed time to enjoy the diverse parade of visitors.

There were rowdy kindergartners, reluctantly posing for photos under the beloved wisteria pergola. Students with Frisbees, heading for the South Lawn. Little boys climbing on stone walls; little girls in spring dresses and pretty hair ribbons. Students marching proud parents around the campus. And teenagers strolling hand-in-hand while mothers with strollers, and fathers with babes in arms took in the surroundings. The green landscape seemingly held attractions for everyone.

The attraction for me? A tour of the Blomquist Garden of Native Plants -- one of the most fascinating plant collections in the Southeast -- with horticulturist Stefan Bloodworth. As curator of the gardens, Bloodworth is the keeper of the "key" to the magical kingdom, where more than 800 species of Southeastern native plants thrive on 6.5 acres smack in the midst of bustling Durham.

Bloodworth greeted me with a handshake; his was the calloused hand of a gardener who has invested in a labor of love. As he spoke of the precious woodland he cares for, I detected the soul of an artist and poet.

"The integration of such a diverse group of plants requires a lot of effort," he said, as we proceeded into the garden of native nature. Bloodworth spends many hours in the woods, contemplating the events that cause a scene to evolve and learning how plants relate to one another and their surroundings. Rather than duplicate the scenes he finds in the wild, he chooses to emulate nature. Just as an artist creates a landscape with brushes and pigments, in the Blomquist Garden, Bloodworth shapes precise compositions with plants. The compositions are so true-to-life that they're often abused by visitors who mistakenly view them as recreation areas.

Understandably, after seeing the manicured symmetry of the adjacent gardens, a seemingly untamed woodland area would appear to be the perfect place to let the kids run amok and expend some pent-up energy. But, not so, boys and girls.

"The Blomquist Garden is really a living museum of plants," Bloodworth said. "While people wouldn't dream of climbing on the exhibits at an art museum, they think nothing of trampling on the delicate wildflowers here."

Still, he optimistically pursues his passion, creating countless expressions of the amazing natural beauty of this region.

Shortly after moving up the pathway, Bloodworth spotted a lovely white trillium grandiflorum blossom and stooped to brush it reverently with his fingertips. As he crouched, he pointed out wild oats, Virginia bluebells, Spring Beauty, Dutchman's Breeches and wild geranium. He combined them to create a perfectly arranged vignette nestled among the natural mulch of fallen Southern magnolia leaves.

Continuing along, beneath a canopy of 125-foot-tall loblolly pines, our tour passed a dry gully lined with ferns unfurling their fronds. We paused to inspect a stand of American bladdernut. Bladdernut, Bloodworth explained, is an understory tree that colonizes easily along stream banks. In the spring, clusters of small greenish-yellow flowers emerge, and the subsequent fruit, resembling a bladder about the size of a small pecan, usually contains a single pea-size seed.

"The bladdernuts fall from the trees and float on the water when there's a stream or river nearby," Bloodworth said. "When they land on a bank downstream, a new stand might grow up to help prevent erosion." He plucked one of the paper-thin bladders from a branch and opened it to reveal the seed.

Meandering up the hill toward "the quietest place to sit" in the garden, we passed pawpaw, viburnum, dogwood and sassafras. The beauty of the delicate yellow blooms on the sassafras trees was captivating. Who knew sassafras trees even had blooms?

Just as in the wild, the woody plants in this garden create a revolving door of blossoms throughout the year. Something colorful is always happening at eye level to complement the various low-growing native perennials.

At the top of the hill, beside an old cypress fence, is a graceful, weathered bench surrounded by plants rescued from harm's way when the Museum of Life and Science in Durham required a new parking lot. The bench is secluded, but after congratulating myself for reaching the summit of the garden with enough breath left to speak, I turned my attention to the scene below where a beautiful pavilion sits beside a water garden rimmed with iris. The pond is dotted with a walkway of North Carolina millstones, a feature that added a delightful punctuation mark for a personal fascination with things historic.

This day, the millstones also attracted a toddler's footsteps. The child took the plunge, mucking up her teeny-tiny tennis shoes so completely that she had to be carried piggyback by her weary mother. (Another tale involving high-heeled sandals shall go untold here.)

My advice to visitors attracted to the wilds of Blomquist Garden: Leave your fashionable shoes in the car and please, please stay on the pathways.

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