Every year we make improvements in both the grounds and the cabins of Willow Winds. Our goal is to provide a better experience every year for our many repeat guests. We continued to make improvements in Willow Winds vacation rentals in 2009 and are maing more improvements in 2010.
At the beginning of each year we go through our cabins and make both decorative and quality improvements to enhance the guests’ luxury experience. Our 2009 guests experienced a change of our towels to a plusher and more luxurious brand. Also, we upgraded the bedding with new bedspreads and new pillows.
We have continued to make our vacation cabins and surrounding resort grounds more unique in numerous ways. Our winter gardens have been enhanced with the planting of hundreds of additional Nellie Stevens hollies and mahonia bealeis. However, the most dramatic change our late winter and spring guests noticed is the addition of over 50,000 daffodils that have been planted along the side of very road and path in Willow Winds.
Also, we began an herb garden in 2009, and have a much improved herb garden in 2010. An enlarged fountain in the middle of the grassy slope above the trout pond is surrounded by a collection of lavender, sage, mint and other herbs for the use of our guests who want to use them for cooking. They add a delightful blend of fragrance and color to our landscape.
In 2009 we have completed the addition of a flat screen High Definition TV in the great room of every cabin. Also, our addition of special alarm clocks and docking stations, as well as the extension of AT&T’s 3G service for iPhones and iPads to the City of Asheville, has made us the ideal lodging for iPhone and iPad users. The master bedroom in each cabin contains a Sony iPhone/iPod alarm clock radio. You can fall asleep and awake to your favorite music. There is no reason you can't enjoy your favorite music throughout your cabin. An Altec Lansing sound dock for iPods and iPhones in each great room will fill the cabin with your own music.
Our free library of over 2,000 videos continues to grow. We purchase the latest releases as soon as they are available, as well as maintain a good collection of old favorites from great performers such as Clint Eastwood. For the children, we maintain a large stock of age appropriate videos.
Our Winter Gardens & Outside Amenities
During the past few years, we added a bocce ball court, an outdoor chess set, a shuffle board set, and several new lighted fountains. We now have a total of 16 lighted fountains, as well as a lighted waterfall, so that every cabin is within the sight and sound of falling water. For repeat guests, we think you will agree that a couple of our new fountains are especially spectacular at night. We have added outdoor charcoal grills at each end of our pond, with picnic tables nearby. We have continued in 2010 to plant new shrubs and trees, including azaleas, hollies, mahonia belias, and rhododendrons.
The greatest joy of a gardener is to see the improvement in the beauty of the landscape every year. During 2009, the results of the thousand of plantings we have added over the years have been evident. Both the natural growth each year and the continual addition of hew plantings make our four seasons garden a delight.
Starting in February, our millions of daffodils and hundreds of forsythias and mahonia bealeis light up the landscape. They join our hundreds of golden euonymus, variegated privet, variegated holly, nandinas and red osier dogwood that provide yellow, gold and red color throughout the Winter and early Spring. Our goal is to create four seasons of equal beauty in our Woodland Gardens. Our hundreds of hollies, nandinas, magnolias, mahonia bealeis, privets, cypress, hemlocks, and pines have beautiful foliage throughout the year.
With great rainfall in 2009, our landscape has been especially green this year. Our daffodils bloomed from late February to May. They were joined in March, April, and May by our hundreds of mahonia bealeis, azaleas, rhododendrons, and mountain laurel. Our spring blooms then gave way to thousands of daylilies, hostas, impatiens, and black-eyed susans. Every year we plant several beds of annuals that bloom profusely throughtout the summer. They are joined in August by beautiful crape myrtle trees.
Our special packages - the Romance Packages and the Biltmore Packages - proved very popular in the last two years and remain available, subject to certain limitations as to availability.
