October Blooms

Just when I think the garden is winding down I am pleased to see mums and asters coming into their prime.  I know they will be blooming now but it still comes as a bit of a surprise each fall.  This is a combo that I am particularly fond of.  The aster I think is Aster Fricartii, Wonder of Staffa.  I got it from my father some years back and it is a winner, blooming here in the Piedmont of NC from September into late October.  I especially like it together with this dark pink mum and so we have planted them together along one edge of the yard.

  Camellia Cecilia in Bud

The camellias too are beginning to open.  We've planted lots of them in the past few years ever since I  worked at Camellia Forest and now they are beginning to get settled in and offer a good show of blooms.  I've decided camellias are a bit fickle, they need enough sun and light to set flowers but not so much that they get burned in the winter time.  It also seems quite helpful to feed them a couple of times a year to help set good buds.  The ones we've managed to put in the right place and treat well are finally rewarding us with blooms and more vigorous growth.  

Camellia Cecilia

A friend once said that when you add new shrubs and trees to the landscape "the first year they sleep, the second year they creep and the third year they leap" and I think there is a lot of truth to this statement. Things are doing especially well this year as we had a decent amount of rain in the second half of the summer and early fall.

Here is another mum that is a great shade.  We have a variety of colors as mums tend to cross and mix over time.  Some have gotten kind of washed out and are almost white or a very pale pink and others have gone quite dark, some almost red.  It's interesting to see what happens over time if they are allowed to mix and blend. 

I worked outside all afternoon, it was a glorious day and finally I felt I was getting on the other side of the cold I've had this week.  Unfortunately, despite my best efforts at hand washing and trying to avoid contaminating him, David is now down with the same bug.  Oh well, the least I can do is go pull some dinner together for us.

A Constellation

Small sweet gums are some of the last trees to lose their leaves, growing in scruffy lines along the edges of the roads, short and weedy they are protected more from the cold so don't drop their leaves till late.  As I take my daily walk the juncos flash their white tail feathers as they dart in and out of the hedge row of young gums, blackberry briar and pines. The Latin name for sweet gum is liquidambar, how magical is that.  I think of syrup, of amber holding insects from ancient times frozen in its fossilized resin. 

The spectacular leaf colors can range from yellow to orange to red to an almost black purple.  Speckled or solid, glossy or flat.  Add to their starry shape the fact that the seed balls are also prickly and pointy and you'll undertstand my astronomical reference.  I learn from wikipedia that the seed pods, which I've always just called gum balls are also know as "space bugs", "monkey ball", "bommyknocker", "bir ball", "conkleberry", "cukoo-bir" or "sticky ball". 

We've finally had a seriously hard freeze with two nights in the upper 20's and so everything tender has at last shriveled and died.  Sadly that includes the camellias, what were lovely flowers last week have all gone brown as of today.  It is almost December after all.  In anticipation of the cold, I broke down on Saturday and picked a peck of bell peppers, but did not pickle them,  they are sitting in a closed brown paper bag in hopes they might ripen up since I don't care much for green bells, much preferring the ripe sweet reds.

And so we head now into the last days of autumn with the winter solstice just three weeks away, the days are seriously short, but happily sunny.

The blog my only voice today

Camellia sasanqua Alabama Beauty

It's been a tough week of battling a cold that seems to continue to get the better of me, the latest insult as of yesterday being that I have lost my voice almost completely, whispering, mime and written word are my only current forms of communication!  I do feel a little better than I did earlier in the week, but really, the night coughing has taken a toll on my sleep and the loss of voice is disconcerting.

Today is also the final big event for our community garden project, a harvest festival/potluck dinner for the 45 families that have been a part of our three Growing Healthy Kids gardens this year.  Always a wild scene with many children running through the space and people speaking three different languages, it's fun, challenging, exhausting all at once.  And me unable to speak?  I just finished preparing a brief powerpoint of the highlights of the year that another staff member will get to present for me.  I'm sure I will arrive home ready to fall into my bed.  Tonight may be the night I break out the heavy duty hydrocodone infused cough syrup.  Meanwhile, I've got a pot of chicken soup simmering on the stove.

Excitement from a couple of days ago was this golden-crowned kinglet that crashed into the back door.  David went out and held it to keep it warm and encouraged it until it was strong and alert enough to hold itself on a branch, and the tiny bird flew away a bit later when D went to take a peek at its progress.  Hopefully no permanent damage was done.

We've been thoroughly enjoying the tiny crabapples on the Prairie Fire crab tree this week as they have gotten riper and redder and hang like ornaments from the branches.  We are waiting for the day when we may look out and see the tree filled with robins or perhaps waxwings eating them up, so far we've only spied a squirrel clambering around up there.

A bit of cheer on a day of drear

I looked that up- drear actually is a word, from dreary of course, and it is such a perfect rhyme with cheer.  And yes, its been rainy today, got so dark a while ago I had to turn on the light despite its being midday.  Here, a photo from a sunny day earlier in the week.  A brilliant flower from the Christmas cactus, which always blooms before Thanksgiving so not sure why they call it a Christmas cactus?  But its striking all the same.

I've just finished reading A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg and can't recommend it highly enough.  It's full of wondeful essays about her family, her father, her husband and each story leads to a fantastic recipe.  She is a lover of all things French, crusty bread, good cheese, interesting soups and salads and best of all- dessert.  She started as a blogger so of course I am intrigued by that and have been frequenting her blog Orangette, which is very worthwhile for swell writing and good recipes.  And she only posts once a week or so, which I find quite civilized.  So check her out.

Inspired by Molly, I include also today a photo of this pie, baked by my bestest friends J&M for our party last Saturday night, the now famous ginger apple, garnished with a stunning camellia, the name of which I have forgotten but it's something like "Miss AnnaBelle" or another equally southern sounding ladies name.

Let's hear it for those southern ladies who inspired not only all sorts of gorgeous flowers but damn good pies as well.

Birthday Flowers

I spent the weekend celebrating my birthday.  That included spending Saturday night around a fire with a few friends, drinking much good wine and eating amazing food including homegrown and wild picked mushrooms, chicken wings and pork tenderloin cooked over the coals, baby sweet potatoes roasted with peanut oil and maple syrup, they melted in our mouths, home grown salad too.  I just polished off the last scrumptious piece of chocolate cherry torte that my honey pie baked in honor of my special day. 

We laughed, sang and danced and the resulting hangover didn't keep us from spending yesterday out in the garden.  The day was way too beautiful to stay inside and as its autumn, well, you gardeners know there are things to plant, move, rearrange, dead stuff to cut back, WEEDS.  I planted two new camelias including this one called Sarrel.  It has a mounding habit and I put it in a spot where I hope it will trail down the hill.

I had to share this lovely with you as well- planted last spring, October Affair, it's decadent in its perfection, this photo really doesn't do it justice.

Two White Dazzlers

You guessed right- another Camellia - Scented Snow, I agree it has a scent, compared to most camellias which smell like nothing, but I wouldn't say it was necessarily a pleasant scent.  Just sort of herbacious.  But a lovely flower it is with double petals and yellow stamens hiding in the center.  The plant has a very tree like form, tall and statuesque.

This one is Autumn Moon pure white and a perfect formal double.  When the petals fall to the ground, they are shaped like hearts.  That's all for tonight, I'm a sleepy, sleepy garden girl.

Another Camellia

I know, more camellias?!  I do work at Camellia Forest so I just can't help myself.  This is Autumn Spirit, I adore the subtle white edges on the pink flower petals. This is a winning Camellia sasanqua that is a vigorous grower and another early bloomer.  A favorite.

I've got a pan of butternut squash, poblano chiles, onions and garlic roasting with cumin and chile powder, planning to add some chunks of pork that Mr.D smoked and roll it all up in tortillas, I think it'll be yummy. Now - some stretching after a long day of work.

Autumn Sentinel

Today I'm featuring another Camellia sasanqua called Autumn Sentinel, formerly Bob Green, I don't know why the name was changed but I think the pale pink of the flower is truly exquisite.  This is an extremely upright, columnar plant with the deep blue green leaves common to most of the sasanquas. It's also a very early bloomer so I've been enjoying it for a couple of weeks already.

I've been pulling extra shifts at the Forest lately as the owner is off to Taiwan to scout for new species.  I've got Camellias on the brain and I'm bone tired from schlepping plants around in the mud and rain all day long!  So- a short post and I'm off to my bed to dream about all those gorgeous plants and flowers that fill my days.

Gardening at the dimming of the day

Camellia sasanqua Autumn Sunrise. 

I can't get over the glossyness of the deep green leaves. 

The flower- all I can say is - wow.

When I realized I had until the end of the month for the time to change, I vowed to spend as many evenings outside as I can, enjoying the late day light and the opportunity to putter around putting the garden to bed.  If I can fill a wheelbarrow with weeds and dead plants to put on the heap I feel like I've made progress. 

I spent this evening deadheading the coneflowers and verbena bonariensis -the goldfinches seem to be finished eating all the seeds.   It looks much tidier now. 

We are still harvesting some late season figs, they ripen slowly in the cooler air but we pick a small handful each day.  They are less watery and taste richer this time of year.  A treat for my morning cereal.

Happy New Year!

What a glorious New Years Day it's been. I woke up and wrote for over an hour then went to work some at the nursery. The boss is on vacay so I was called in to feed the pigs and open and close the greenhouses against the cold. It was nice to be there all alone and not in a hurry, walking through the greenhouses admiring the camellias in bloom. I'm learning to know my favorites, like Reverend Ida, a small, double flowered, dark purplish red, or Yume, pale pink and white single flowers with short yellow stamens. Where will I find a place for all those that I feel the need to bring home?

The trail that I walk from home to the nursery has been bothering me for months. A maple top and lots of bamboo and some pine trees were all tumbled down blocking the old road and forcing me to follow the deer paths around and about to get where I needed to go. It was the perfect cold, sunny day to get behind the chain saw and get that path tidied up. I feel so strong and accomplished and kind of brave when I run the chain saw by myself. Now, there is a wide open path that I can easily stroll to and from work and even if it's getting dark I'll be able to see my way- hurray.

We went to a super duper New Years Day party with all of our neighbors at the home of Brian and Dale, our newest neighbors. The place is beautiful and the company and food was mighty fine. Now home to fall into bed and wake up on January 2nd, another glorious day yet to unfold.

I love the New Year, everything can start fresh, all things seem possible.