Bay Laurel December 14, 2014

It's great to have a Bay Laurel because I always have bay leaves for cooking.  This year I see little fruit on the branches which I have never noticed before.  Very interesting.  Bay trees - either large shrubs or small trees - are evergreen with leathery dark green leaves.  I have never had a problem with damage from freezes.  I have read that they are tolerant of pruning, and they can be used as topiaries and hedges. Obviously, mine has just been allowed to shoot out every which way!

 In the picture below you can just see the little flowers / fruits.  Fascinating!

 

Weekend at the Farm December 13 - 14, 2019

This is my Yuletide Camellia.

Arrived Thursday evening.  Home on Saturday afternoon for Lights in the Heights party at Josh's house.  Sam and Charlie spent the night with me on Saturday night.

• Friday.  I walked around all the gardens to decide where to plant my two new camellia japonicas that I purchased from The Arbor Gate.  Planting camellias at the age of 58 is proof that I am in a very optimistic phase of my life because they grow very, very slowly.  I guess I think things are going pretty well!  I walked through various gardens with the shovel in my hands and stuck it in several places to see if the soil was loose or matted (from the cedar trees).
• I planted Coral Delight Camellia japonica in the Medicine Garden.  This is a good spot for a camellia - dappled sunlight and pretty decent water source.  The flowers are a deep coral-pink.  Camellia sinensis is the plant used for tea in China (and in Lipton tea).  My camellia is a japonica - a decorative, merely a representative of the medicinal herb.  But still fun to have in the Medicine Garden, I think.  I bought a large one.  They grow so very slowly.  It was laden with buds, so it looks like a very good bloomer.  I think I will love it!  
• I planted Royal Velvet in one of the Star Garden beds that line the walk to the Rose Garden,  Royal Velvet has flowers of deep red.  While I was there I cleaned up the area a bit - cut away the Philippine lily stalks, picked up twigs, pulled up some dead winter vegetation.  I also laid down some compost around my Sweet Olive and the Giant Ligularia. 
• The lady at Arbor Gate advised that I should add shale to the holes that I dig for the camellias, so I bought a bag of shale chips, mixed it with compost, and layered it generously at the bottom of the holes that I dug.  Watered the camellias in well.
• I also bought a White Pillar Rose of Sharon.  White flowers are so showy.  This is a semi-double.  I planted it near the front arbor.  I used some of the shale I bought.
•  And I planted 3 salvia nemorosa Blue Marvel.  I love the nemorosas, but I haven't had real good luck with them.  I have planted them in the early spring, but I think I will have better luck planting them now so that they have more time to establish themselves.  They look better in mass, but they are $9 each.  I'd love to have 20 of them planted together.  
• I did quite a bit of raking.  I loaded the cadet 3 times with leaves and dumped them in the Daffodil Border.  I'm almost finished with that, then I want to put some in the wild part of the Star Garden.  This is an important time of year.  I have to use fallen leaves for mulch in many parts of my gardens.  I can't use purchased mulch in all my gardens, I could never afford that.  So I need to rake leaves and use them.  Eventually, if I don't act within the first month after they fall, they scatter to the woods and they are gone.  
• I also raked up 2 truckloads of pine needles and laid them down in the Orchard.   
• Dug up two clumps of Butter Pat mums that were growing in the path in the Rose Garden and transplanted them to a bed. 
• I took 3 Country Girl mum cuttings, sprinkled them with root stimulator, and stuck them in a pot.  I will try to grow some new plants, don't know if it will work.
• Saturday.  I finished laying down leaves in the Daffodil Border.  Yay!
• I raked more leaves and laid them down in the wild part of the Star Garden.
• And I raked up a big truckload of pine needles and spread them in the Orchard underneath the big blackberry bed.
• I dug up 4 clumps of day lilies in the Orchard and moved them to the Rose Garden.  Not a great time to move day lilies, but they were totally shaded by a plum tree.  They have basically been disappearing over the last two summers, and I wanted to move them before they became dormant.  They are in a very sunny spot now.
• I helped Bert clear out some yaupon that was crowding a trail.  I poisoned the cuts after he cut them down, and then we dragged the debris out of the way.  That was quite a bit of work.  
• After that, we went to the clearing that I began last winter, and he used the electric saw to cut down some of the thick yaupon.  We dragged it to our debris pile.  I spent another hour lopping small yaupon, poisoning the cuts and dragging it off.  It is pretty in there, lots of woodland bunch grass, beautyberry and farkleberry with dappled sun shining through.  It is a long term project with no end in sight, but I'm determined to see it through until I can't do it anymore.
• Headed home about 2:00.

Giant Ligularia December 13, 2019

I have Giant Ligularia planted in deep shade.  It is a shade lover, but it can take some morning sun. But mine is never exposed to any direct sunlight.  It is nice to have something blooming right now.

Thanksgiving Long Weekend 2019

This is Cinco de Mayo rose.  I just bought her, she is still very small.  This photo does not do justice to the color of this flower.  I read one description "smoked lavender and rusty red-orange'.
I drove up on Wednesday afternoon.  Before I hired a maid, arriving on Wednesday would have been a terrible slog of work to clean the house.  It has been a life-changing (and expensive) improvement.  I cooked the things I was assigned and gathered greenery and berry branches for the tables.  We had 22 adults and five children.  Very fun day, very good to be together as a family.  Everyone was gone by noon on Friday except for Nathan's dogs.  I kept them for the weekend while the family went to Austin.  Bert left to go hunting with Will at the ranch as he does every Thanksgiving, but this time Henry went with them - three generations.

• The seeds I sowed have sprouted everywhere, and it is the usual thrill.  I love to watch the seedlings grow.  
• I've never been very good at starting work in the middle of the day.  So I did very little on Friday.
• I raked leaves and loaded the cadet five or so times , dumped the leaves in the Daffodil Border.  I'm almost finished mulching that area.  It's very long, and I make my layer of leaves pretty deep to keep down the weeds.  
• I pulled everything out of the shed that I'm going to use tomorrow morning so I will ready to hit the ground running. 
• Saturday.  I filled the four x four bed in the Vegetable Garden with compost that Bert and I built up last weekend.  (We added another row of cedar logs to make the bed deeper.)  I planted the cloves from 3 garlic bulbs throughout most of it, then sowed Corncockle in the rest of the bed.  I sowed Corncockle, Tall Poppy Mallow and red corn poppies in a few other spots as well.  I've never planted garlic at this time of year.  I forgot about it, actually.  I ordered it and was going to plant it in the early fall, but I stuck it in my seed box and forgot about it.  The cloves are sitting in pure mushroom compost.  Garlic is a very heavy feeder, so maybe it will grow fabulously despite being planted in late November. 
• I worked in the Orchard for a while.  I moved the pine needles in four or so spots in the Jujube bed, threw down some compost and sowed seeds - Tall Poppy Mallow, California Poppy, red poppy and Moss Verbena.
• I did some raking in the Rose Garden.  And I prepped some spots and sowed seeds.  Did a little weeding, but there aren't many weeds - summer weeds have died off and winter weeds are still tiny.  Plus, I have been laying down lots of compost which smothers the weeds.  
• I trimmed the Sweetspire in the Circle so that I can see my beautiful Debutante Camellia from the house.  So, so pretty right now.
• I laid down compost in a few spots in the Star Garden, and I sowed seeds. 
• Sunday.  Bert and I were up before light.  We drank coffee on the porch in the cool dark morning.
• I cleaned out the area behind the Vegetable Garden.  That area is a combination of compost pile attempts, dead Mexican Sunflower vegetation, dead castor plant vegetation, and emerging growth of wildflowers and weeds.  The sunflowers and castors look like dried up skeletons after the first freeze.  I yanked them out of the ground and loaded them in the cadet.  I also forked out all the branches, twigs, etc - things that take too long to rot.  I raked up three truckloads of leaves at one of my favorite leaf-gathering spots just adjacent to the Vegetable Garden along the backside of the Shade Garden.  That is some good leaf!  I stuffed a bunch of leaves into one of my large plastic buckets to begin a new compost pile.  And I added leaves to my current one and mixed it all up really well.  
• I worked on my Kitchen Herb Garden for a couple of hours.  I turned over the soil and added lots and lots of compost.  I planted 4 thyme, 1 sage, 2 winter savory, 2 prostrate rosemary, 2 oregano, and 3 chive.  Then I sowed the last of my parsley seeds.  Those seeds were a great purchase.  I will always buy parsley in bulk.  It will always get used.
• I hauled 4 or so wheel barrowsful of  compost over to the Long Border and spread it around next to my 2 climbers.  Then I sowed seeds - poppy mallow and poppies.
• Watered-in all the seeds I sowed.
• Headed in to work on Monday morning.