The Bird Barn returns

Written By: Luke Osteen | Issue: 2021/05 – May | Photograph By: Sarah Fielding

Glenn and Kim Ubertino

It’s pretty obvious that the Plateau has always had a love affair with its birds. 

Consider the tireless work of the Highlands Plateau Audubon Society. Every issue of Laurel has a detailed exploration of the lives and loves of our feathered neighbors, courtesy of the deep knowledge and insatiable curiosity of William McReynolds. 

That’s why it should be a surprise to no one that Glenn and Kim Ubertino, the dynamic couple who’ve powered Zoller Hardware into a must-visit destination in Cashiers, are opening Bird Barn & Garden, right next to Zoller in The Shops at Cashiers Commons. 

It features everything that birds (and the people who love them) could ask for – feeders that are accessible and designed to confound squirrels; birdhouses (both practical and whimsical); and varieties of bird seed. 

This last bit of information is of importance to the Plateau’s serious bird lovers. Bird Barn & Garden will be offering the coveted Bird Barn Blend. This exclusive mix of seeds is specially formulated for birds here in Cashiers and Highlands.

In fact, the centerpiece of Bird Barn & Garden is the daily presence of LeRoy Parr who, with his wife Sandy, made The Bird Barn a Cashiers institution. LeRoy will be welcoming shoppers with his trademark warmth and encyclopedic expertise. It’s an insider’s knowledge served up free for the asking. 

And then there’s the Gardening part of the equation. Like its love affair with its birds, the Highlands-Cashiers Plateau is passionate about its gardening – witness the outsized presence of the Plateau’s Garden Clubs, and the storybook homes set in the midst of magnificent landscaping, or the jewel-box gardens scattered across The Village Green.

So naturally, The Bird Barn and Garden offers an assortment of goods to make local gardens dazzle. That means you’ll find high-end tools designed for comfort and ease-of-use, decorative and clever pots, organic seeds, and ornaments and signs. 

And just like Leroy and his Avian Wisdom, Bird Barn and Garden offers the services of a pair of women who’ve spent years landscaping on the Plateau, Moselle McCall and Desiré Newman. If you’re reading this magazine, you know that gardening and landscaping here is a highly stylized enterprise. Plants need to be conditioned to the peculiarities of growing in a temperate rainforest, and the distinct geometry of slope and curve requires an insider’s knowledge of planting in the mountains. 

That’s where their insight and wisdom really comes into play. 

And, of course, there’s the simple pleasure of browsing and discovering, and this being Cashiers, just chatting. It’s been part of the landscape as long as there’ve been people here on the Plateau. In fact, it’s the sort of energy and easy-going spirit that the Ubertinos have brought to Zoller Hardware.