Propagating endangered red spruce.
As a boy, Robert Balentine loved gardening, hiking and camping— passions that increased as an adult. “When our kids were young, my wife, Betty, and I bought property in western North Carolina to protect it from development,” the chairman of Balentine Wealth Advisors in Buckhead says. “Over the next decade, we were able to acquire 120 contiguous acres on a protected track of wilderness known as Panthertown Valley that’s managed by the U.S. Forest Service. No logging or motorized vehicles are allowed. Because it gets nearly 100 inches of rain annually, there are more different types of plants than in any other parts of the world other than tropical rainforests.”
For their outstanding achievement in environmental protection and quality of life, the Garden Club of America recently presented the couple with the 2025 Cynthia Pratt Laughlin national medal.
Located at an elevation of 4,500 feet on top of Toxaway Mountain, the Southern Highlands Reserve is under a conservation easement to grow and display plants native to the Southern Appalachian Mountains that grow above 2,500 feet. “We started growing endangered red spruce trees and planted 7,000,” Ballentine says. With public and private funding, they were able to build a greenhouse to grow 50,000 more at the request of the Forestry Service. It opened in May.
SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS RESERVE
southernhighlandsreserve.org
@southern_highlands_reserve
