catching up (or not), heroes, and blooming camellias

I'm getting quotes for the demolition this week, quotes for the geotechnical surveys have been received, and HVAC and structural engineering consultants have been lined up.

All I can say is that my utility bills had better be really low after going through all of this.

And there's gonna have to be a party.  A really good party.  (Or perhaps an interesting road trip...see below for details). 

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Today I talked to students.  One was freaking out (her words) but she didn't need to be, another was trying to get back on tract (and he will), another was trying to find a time to meet with me and I'm sure she was nervous because she wanted to go over a 'last' piece of data that would conclude her dissertation research.  Oh, yeah, another student was on bed rest in the hospital, trying not to deliver a baby.  The lab's poet laureate came in, but was under the weather, and the lab's eclair-maker was trying to figure out where he was after a long weekend away.  In other words, it was a typical day.

As for me, I've got to get into grant mode - which means that I need to be obsessed, cranky, moody, and impossible to get to pay attention to a word anyone is saying.  To kick grant-mode week(s) off, I'm going to read this - which, of course, has little directly to do with dolphins, but everything to do with humans - except that the co-evolution of microorganisms and their mammalian hosts has everything to do with what I'm writing the grant about.    

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Last night, while I was in a fireplace-fire-induced coma (compounded by a long drive and a few days out of town), I read a post over at Garden Rant about the Heroes of Horticulture - and was reminded that I had seen this awhile back, a wonderful list of horticultural features (threatened ones unfortunately) with a connection to the past.  It was nice to think that if I ever wanted to do a tour, stopping off at each of the places listed, that I could start right here in Charleston - at Magnolia Plantation and Gardens.

Last Sunday I noticed that my first Camellia japonica 'Debutante' flower of the season had opened.  This was the only camellia in my garden when I bought the place - and it's always the first japonica to start flowering (I've written of it before, here).  I've had blooms on it until April - mine has an incredibly long blooming season.  The flower of Debutante is classified as peony-like, and it was one of the camellias introduced by Magnolia Plantation.  I love the old camellias - the one's that come with it's own story - and although my favorite place to wander a lowcountry camellia garden is elsewhere - I love the long and dedicated history that Magnolia Plantation and Gardens has had with camellias, and I think that it's great that they are one of the heroes on The Cultural Landscape Foundation list.  They deserve it.

As always, my list of camellia 'must haves' is growing - and looking over Magnolia's history, I couldn't resist their list of some of this country's earliest camellia cultivars:  Orando Ko (1724), Alba Superba (1840s), Marchioness of Exeter (1873), Gigantea (1840s), Alba Plena (1792), and Specioca (1824).

Also on the list of Heroes was the Angel Southern Live Oak - an amazing tree on Johns Island, that I pass everytime I head over to Pete's Herb Farm.  How lucky are we to have two of the Heroes of Horticulture in our own backyard?  But now I feel compelled to visit the Southern Live Oak Tree in Baton Rouge, LA - and while I'm there, I could cruise down to see the Bamboo Groves of Jungle Gardens in Avery Island, LA - then, I could head west and visit Live Oak Tree Allee, on Main Street, Houston, TX...then head over to Long Beach, CA to see the Moreton Bay Fig Trees - and then...wait, I feel an Airstream adventure coming on, one big horticultural road trip (I'll just follow the dots), after the house is built and my life settles down (and please don't laugh, it will settle down.  It must, don't you think?).

All of these Heroes of Horticulture are threatened.