I've got the name of this azalea somewhere - it's a sweet one, with flowers that are smaller than formosas, but not as small as the older varieties (which I love). Each year, when it first starts to bloom (and unfortunately it's a bit hidden) - I'm reminded of how beautiful it is, and that I should propagate it so that I can plant a few more in the garden. Last year I missed it (while living in northern Virginia) - so it has been extra special to see it this year.
This year things have been a bit strange in the garden - early, yes - but also a bit unpredictable. My spring-flowering magnolia 'Jane' always blooms after my star magnolia - which is often the first to brave the still-chilly weather (often when there is still a risk of freezing temperatures). But this year 'Jane' popped out first, followed by my star magnolia. To add to the strangeness: a few hydrangeas never lost their leaves, and my fall-blooming salvia, Salvia puberula "Hidalgo" is still blooming away, a bit crazily.
I missed spring in my garden last year - I was here for about six days in March but that was all. It is so nice being here again, and watching it wake up.
~Camellia X 'Egao Corkscrew'~
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My friend Skip has given me a number of camellia's over the years, gifts as I'm leaving his place after several hours of roaming around his hundreds of camellias (I arrive bringing something sweet, and preferably chocolate - and leave taking away something camellia). He is always propagating camellias - and has them at almost every stage of rooting.
During my visit last summer, he gave me the camellia cross that has the distinct 'corkscrew' branching pattern - along with double, pink flowers. Mine is still small, not quite a foot tall yet - but it's doing well and I can't wait to get it in the ground and watch it grow. Skip told me to keep it in the pot for awhile longer, and so I will.
Another camellia that he showed me during my last visit was Camellia X 'Cinnamon Scentsation'. I'm not sure that Skip is propagating this one yet, so I might have to get it the old-fashioned way (by purchasing it). His had such a wonderful fragrance - and I tend to like the single flowers the best.
I've been wanting to add Edgeworthia chrysantha to the garden for years now, and it just never happened. Until today that is - when I called a few garden centers and found one of them had two in stock. I asked them to save them for me, and a few hours later I went to get them (and since they were both in bloom, the fragrance in my car on the drive home was wonderful!).
I haven't planted them in the ground yet, but I know where I will put them. It makes me happy, adding them to my garden.
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I went for a quick visit to Skip's camellia garden last week, and he showed me this lovely bloom of Camellia japonica 'Mary Wheeler'. He said that it was always his wife's favorite camellia. This camellia was hybridized by Wheeler's Central Georgia Nurseries and was introduced in 1957.
It's lovely, isn't it?
I'd noticed a few camellia seedlings in my garden - two or three - but a few weeks ago I noticed that one already had buds on it, so I was anxious to see what the bloom would be like. I think this flower is from a seedling generated by a Camellia japonica 'Debutante' seed, so it definitely doesn't look like it's parent. It is somewhat similar to many of the seedlings I see at Skip's camellia garden - it will be fun to share this news with him.
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A friend commented recently, after I posted an image of swiss chard that I had harvested from my garden - that I needed to start a business photographing celebrity chard. It was one of those silly things that makes you laugh - and that, of course, one can't let go. So I took some swiss chard to an artist friend's gallery - and took this photograph of my swiss chard on one of his (stunning) platters.
It is rather lovely swiss chard, isn't it?
But this will have to be the end of my celebrity chard photography business. (That said, whose swiss chard would you like to photograph?)
~first frost on the savoy cabbages~
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There was a late "first frost" this year - I woke up on New Year's Eve to find the first heavy frost draping the vegetable garden. The side vegetable garden and backyard garden (where the new muscadines are planted, along with a few fruit trees) have no protection from frost - while the front garden (with large bald cypresses, a southern Magnolia, a river birch and several deciduous magnolias) and other side garden (filled with six towering live oaks) offer protection to the plants living beneath. So there are still green leaves on some of the hydrangeas and perennials - and today I noticed that my morning glory on the front fence still had a bloom.
Things I need to do: finish planting the bulbs (late purchases), sow the poppy seeds, dig up some of the Hydrangea macrophylla 'Blaumeise' that have rooted and transplant them in the front garden, relocate perennial salvias from out in front of the front fence (that haven't been blooming because of too much shade) and find them some sun, order asparagus crowns to fill in the area in the asparagus bed that has been enlarged, and get two more blueberry bushes. Things I want to do: find a few Edgeworthia chrysantha plants, plant a few italian cypresses (for along the back fence, where the fruit trees and muscadine vines are planted), and research drought tolerant grasses. Things I should do: prepare lectures for my Spring semester course, work on two manuscripts, and prepare a proposal for submission.
~the side garden~
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My place has been, more or less, neglected for 11 months - brief, and mostly too-busy visits were about all I managed over the past year while I was living in northern Virginia. Leaving in early August was tough - but the winter also ended up being unusually warm and dry - so most of what I lost I lost due to lack of water.
So I've been watering. A lot.
And everything is happier, slowly but surely.
About two years ago I started moving perennials that were being shaded out by fast-growing cypresses and surprisingly fast-growing live oaks to a border near my vegetable garden beds (and asparagus and blueberry beds). This side of the garden is extremely hot - full sun with some late afternoon shade - and in the winter, it's a spot that captures the cold air, and I see frost there and often no where else. So I started transplanting clumps of perennials to this warm spot before I knew that the garden would have to make it on it's own for a year.
The grasses did wonderfully, as did the crinums. The gingers weren't happy, and I lost a beautiful native coneflower with small green flowers (I need to find it again - I just loved it). My roses look like hell. The salvias are doing their best. The fennel a few days ago was covered in eastern black swallowtail caterpillars, then the chrysalis' disappeared too soon (mean birds!). A small vegetable garden is planted: an eggplant, two bell peppers and one jalapeno, four tomatoes, two basil plants, and one hill of canteloupe.
This side garden - a spot that I call my 'working farm' - is a bit of a mess, and needs care. It'll get it, although any real improvements might have to wait until the first cool breezes reach this far south, sometime in late September. But even as neglected as this garden has been, it's filled with hummingbirds every morning and every evening, and throughout the heat of the afternoon.
It's wonderful, being back in the garden.
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