Family influences dominate Mills Farm

The first in a series highlighting each of the six private gardens featured on this year’s Mount Airy Blooms Garden Tour scheduled for Saturday, June 8. The tour is presented by Mount Airy’s three garden clubs. Proceeds will benefit a variety of charities. Ticket-holders will have a bonus opportunity to drive through the Healing and Prayer Garden at Northern Hospital of Surry County. Tickets for the Mount Airy Blooms Garden Tour are available at Eventbrite.com, the Mount Airy Visitors Center and at each garden site on the day of the tour. Advance tickets are $20 while tickets on the day of the tour are $25, cash only. For more information contact mountairyblooms@gmail.com.

History and family are the two words that best describe the expansive gardens of Tana and Vance Mills in the Ararat community. The Mills’ property is one of the gardens featured on this year’s Mount Airy Blooms Garden Tour, sponsored by Garden Gate, Modern Gardeners, and Mountain View garden clubs.

The Mills live in what was originally a two-room house built 107 years ago and purchased by Vance Mill’s grandparents, Mattie and Gurney Mills, in the early 1930s. The original house has been enhanced by several renovations and additions over the years, including the recent completion of a large screened porch built entirely by Vance Mills. He purchased the farm in 1986 while he was working in the field of aviation in Greensboro. When he and Tana married in 1989, they began the first of the additions and renovations on the house and eventually moved there.

Several outbuildings on the property include a 1947 feed barn that serves as Tana’s studio and a garage Vance built more than 40 years ago to mirror the barn his grandfather built. Additional structures on the property include a tobacco barn, two greenhouses, and a two-room former tenant house that provide interesting backdrops for a variety of trees, shrubs, perennials, and annuals. On a recent cool, early spring morning, purple iris, dogwoods and Lenten roses were in bloom, guarded by stately walnut trees, oak trees, and boxwoods all dating back more than 100 years. Several curly willow trees grace the property, all of which came from one tree. Prostrata shrubs are planted near the front of the house where a circular drive welcomes visitors to the front door.

In June, other annuals and perennials will be blooming, including hydrangea, peonies, geraniums, impatiens, Knockout roses, lilacs, kousa dogwoods and a variety of other annuals.

Vance remembers fondly the hours he spent on the property as a boy. Since he lived nearby, he and his brother and sister wore a path through an adjoining field, walking barefoot each day to play and help on his grandparents’ farm. When his father gave him a small motorcycle when he was 12, the path grew up since Vance could ride on the long drive leading to the house.

The Mills have wonderful memories of their daughter Taylor growing up and surrounded by nature. Tana said the farm was a wonderful environment to raise a child. She said Taylor developed a love of animals from sharing the farm with goats, cats, dogs, and a donkey. When Taylor was around middle school age, Vance created a Halloween “spook trail” for Taylor and her friends to enjoy, a project he continued for five to six years. Taylor also inherited her parents’ love of plants and her mother’s design talents. She is now a floral designer.

It is obvious that the Mills have green thumbs and creativity but they also credit the soil and weather with making their property an ideal place for growing just about anything. For 15 years, the Mills operated a commercial greenhouse growing poinsettias, chrysanthemums, and geraniums. From 1985-2001, the farm included a Christmas tree growing operation. Local residents could purchase Christmas trees there but the majority of the trees went to Puerto Rico where traditional Christmas trees come at a premium. Tana laughingly recounted offering Puerto Rican customers poinsettias as well as Christmas trees, only to learn that poinsettias grow wild there.

Almost all of the plants, flowers, and decorative items on the Mills property have a tie to family or friends and many have a story to tell. For example, a large peach tree near the house grew from a seed thrown out by Vance’s grandmother many years ago. The single tree has produced so many peaches Tana tired of making peach “everything” and often shared them with friends and neighbors—that is until the squirrels found the peaches and stripped the tree clean in one night. Two large blueberry bushes produce so many blueberries the Mills can share them with neighbors also.

Following with the tradition of using plants and items from family and friends, the Iris on the property came from Vance’s mother’s sister. Large rust-colored rocks placed strategically in a variety of locations came from Tana’s parents’ home in Summerfield.

Vance recalled that his grandmother was a teetotaler who would not allow alcohol in the house. His grandfather, however, enjoyed an occasional “nip” and would hide bottles of Old Crow bourbon on the property. Vance has found so many Old Crow bottles in the fields and woods that he crafted an Old Crow tree, a humorous tribute to his grandfather.

Tana is an artist who owns and operates Countryside Designs doing custom painting and murals for her clients. Her creativity can be seen around the property where she comes up with an idea and Vance makes it come to life.

Vance can apparently create almost anything for the gardens, primarily from old materials left on the property over the years. He built a potting shed attached to the barn, a clock in the garden and another one on the tobacco barn that greets visitors as they drive up to the house. Birdhouse he has built adorn the property, attached to trees and outbuildings. Colorful wind spinners are visible from the porch. Repurposing family items is second nature to the Mills, evidenced by the addition of a lightening rod placed ornamentally in the gardens. The lightning rod once sat atop the original house in Vance’s grandparents’ day. Apparently, it worked, Vance joked, since the house was never struck by lightning.

The Mills are not only creative, they are adventuresome and willing try almost anything relating to their beloved property. A friend noticed the number of walnut trees on the property and suggested Vance should try tapping the trees to make walnut syrup. Although he had never done anything like that, he purchased tapping equipment and went to work. It takes 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup, Vance says, so he stopped at 20 gallons. The Mills say the walnut syrup he produced is delicious and similar to maple syrup.

The 20-minute drive from downtown Mount Airy to the Mills Farm on Monet Lane in the Ararat community is well worth the trip. In addition to the Mills’ gardens, visitors will be treated to beautiful views of Pilot Mountain along the way.