2023 HIGHLANDS NC EXPERIENCE GUIDE
quality. Additionally, it has been instrumental in protecting some of the area’s most iconic views, with nine properties open to the public: Brushy Face Preserve, Dixon Woods Park, Kelsey Trail Preserves, McKinney Meadow, Pinky Falls, Ravenel Park, Rhodes Big View, Rhododendron Park, and Satulah Mountain. Conserving Highlands’ unique, wild places has been the goal of the Highlands Biological Station since its founding in 1927. Now an education and research facility with a multi-campus complex centered at Western Carolina University, it includes the Highlands Nature Center and the Highlands Botanical Garden – a 12-acre refuge for the botanical diversity of the plateau.
Associate Director Jason Love is a passionate advocate for the restoration of the indigenous botanical bounty that has been lost under interstates and replaced by generic hothouse blooms. “Planting native plants ensures the survival of the songbirds and salamanders that live only here, along with the continuation of insects that pollinate our crops,” says Love. “If bees and other pollinators disappear, so too will many species of plants. Without bees, the whole food chain would collapse.” Recognizing the dire need for preservation, Highlands became a certified Bee City USA in March 2018. Since then, it has become a better place for pollinators – committing to increasing the abundance of native
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