Layla Khoury-Hanold is a food and lifestyle journalist with a passion for storytelling whose work has appeared in top publications like Food Network, Food52, Refinery29, VinePair, The James Beard Foundation, and The Chicago Tribune.
Taking time to stop and smell the roses is literally part of Bill Quade’s job description. As the Director of Horticulture at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina, Quade spends the first hour and a half of his day walking through much of the estate’s 75 acres of historic gardens.
Quade first got the gardening bug working summers on his uncle’s Christmas tree farm in Wisconsin, where he says he fell in love with working outside and getting hands dirty. He has called western North Carolina home since he was ten years old; he obtained his Associate of Applied Science Degree in Horticulture from Western Piedmont Community College in Morganton, and his Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and Law from Western Carolina University.
He has worked in Biltmore’s horticulture department since 1998, when he started as a gardener on the estate road. Over the decades, he’s worked in a variety of positions including Landscaping Crew Leader, Antler Hill Village & Winery Landscaping Manager and Horticulture Manager. He lives in Asheville with his wife, son and daughter, as well as an indoor cat and an outdoor cat. He also has a garden at home—sort of. “My first boss here at Biltmore always said he had a “yarden,” which is a cross between a yard and garden,” Quade says. “I have adopted the same philosophy, but with fewer edibles, a larger yard while reverting a portion of the turf back into a wooded setting.”…