More Pictures of My Coral Delight Camellia January 26, 2020

My little camellia is blooming it heart out.

Day at the Farm January 26, 2020

Above, a picture of some of my sweeties, about to bloom.

I spent Saturday night at Blake's to babysit.  Drove to the farm Sunday morning.

• Mostly what I wanted to do was sow my carrot seeds.  I had a new pile of mushroom compost delivered on Friday while Bert was here.  I dumped a truckload of compost in the long bed nearest the Meadow.  Turned over the soil, smoothed it out.  Sowed 2 packages of Scarlet Nantes carrots.  I had enough room to plant the cloves of the 2 remaining garlic bulbs I bought last fall.  I also sowed part of a package of dill and sprinkled a few red corn poppies around.
• I got a bin out of the shed and used it to help me stir my compost buckets.  I am making small batches of compost in some large feed buckets that Albert Meyers gave me.  I dumped the feed buckets of compost into the bin and then dumped them back into the feed buckets.  That mixed everything up really well.
• I side-dressed the woodland canna in the Shade Garden as well as some Philippine lily seedlings that I planted in the Shade Garden last year.  That little part of the Shade Garden always stays dry.  
• I spread compost in the bed where that Coral Honeysuckle was growing - it died, not sure if it was due to being dry or due to voles.  I planted another Coral Honeysuckle in that spot.
• I planted a Sweet Autumn Clematis on the screen that I set up last weekend.  I have always wanted a Sweet Autumn Clematis.  I think I will regret where I planted it, in fact I already think I will move it next weekend when I am here.
• Drove in to work on Monday morning.

Weekend at the Farm January 19 - 20, 2020

The paperwhites have begun blooming.

Saturday afternoon Oliver's birthday, to the farm after that.  We returned Monday evening, I had Monday off for Martin Luther King holiday.

• Sunday cold and sunny which was wonderful.  I bought a bag of fertilizer on Saturday morning so that I could fertilize my seven camellias.  I fertilized all of them (I have no idea if now is a good time to fertilize, but I made the assumption it was fine.  They are evergreen and they are expending their energy now on blooms.  It seemed to me like the right time.)
• While I was wheeling my bag of fertilizer around in my wheelbarrow I spread some around my dear little Eve's Necklace tree.  To my delight, it had sprung up from a seed off the mother tree.  I dug it up - I believe this was last summer - and planted it in the bed next to the pool underneath the pretty Post Oaks that bend over the deck. 
• I also fertilized my Sweet Olive in the Star Garden.
• I pulled weeds here and there.
• I spent a couple of hours in the Vegetable Garden.  The asparagus finally went dormant.  I cut it all down to the ground and hauled it away.  I raked and pulled weeds.  The winter broad-leaf weeds are great for the compost pile, so I threw all of the weeds in the compost bucket that I'm working on.  Fertilized the asparagus.  Asparagus is a heavy feeder.  I straightened up all the goat wire and other wire frames that I use in the spring garden.  
• The green metal screen that Blake gave me has been laying on the ground in the Vegetable Garden, so I finally set it up in the Orchard.  I had an old gate propped up in the Satsuma bed in the Orchard, but it finally rotted apart.  So I pulled that out and put in the screen.  It is very heavy, sold iron.  I need a structure in that bed because I grow vines on it.  I have an Alamo vine and some hops vines.  And occasionally I sow other seeds on it.  
•  I dug up five or so Philippine Lily seedlings from paths and moved them to beds.
• Weeded in the Rose Garden.
•  I planted 4 Italian oregano in the Rose Garden.  It makes a good ground cover, and it blooms.  I've never planted it in the Rose Garden, but I thought I would give it a try.  It is pretty drought tolerant - or at any rate it does not like to sit with its roots wet all the time.  
• I planted one last Mother of Thyme in the Kitchen Herb Garden.  I won't plant anything else in there for the spring and summer season.  The parsley seed that I spread in there has all sprouted, and it has made a bright green carpet in several places.
• The robins are still here.  They are noisy, cheerful birds.  Endlessly entertaining to watch.  They don't eat at the feeders, preferring instead to eat live insects.  But they bathe in the bird baths and drink at the rain barrels.  I poured fresh water in all the bird baths.
• I brought in some kale from the garden and made a salad for dinner.
• Monday.  Colder than Sunday but also sunny.  I staked my Sweet Peas in the Star Garden with bamboo sticks.  I already had a decorative trellis around them, but being more decorative than functional, they needed a few more places on which to climb.
• I moved three clumps of sweet woodland violets that were growing in paths over to the Medicine Garden.  That's a good place for them because the leaves and flowers are edible.  I surrounded them with compost.  I added compost to the Violet Bed in the Star Garden because there was a space about a foot wide where no violets had creeped in to.  I made it a little more inviting.  I call that a Loving Spoonful.
• I sprayed herbicide on the driveway, in the Rose Garden, the Vegetable Garden, around the pool, alongside a fenceline of the Star Garden, around the back beds and the Star Garden.
• I hand watered my new plantings by the Greenhouse.  And I watered the spider lilies that I planted last weekend.
• Weeded in my Milk and Wine crinum bed.
• Fertilized the Banana Shrub in the Star Garden.  Fertilized in the Daffodil Border.  I used up the whole bag of fertilizer that I bought last week.
• I got up on the ladder and cleaned all the light fixtures in the kitchen and over the bar.
• I laid down plastic shelf liner on a long shelf in the laundry room and all the drawers in the master bathroom.
• I spent some time in the Circle Drive garden picking up fallen tree limbs, cutting away Philippine Lily stalks and spreading the seed, and picking up dead ginger vegetation.  Cutting away lily stalks is a lot like woman's work - its never done.
• Wandered around the gardens for several hours and then we drove home.

The First Yellow Daffodil of the Season January 20, 2020

I think this is either St Keverne or Trevithian.  I'm not certain and too lazy to research.

Pretty Vegetables and Herbs in my Vegetable Garden January 20, 2020

Cilantro

Winterbor Kale

Parlsey

Collards

Collards and Corncockle seedlings

Coral Delight Camellia January 20, 2020

I just planted Coral Delight a couple of weekends ago.  These are the first blooms, so I've haven't seen the flowers until now.  They are pretty although I think I prefer the fuller flowered camellias like my Debutante and my White by the Gates.

Emerging Bulbs January 12, 2020

The paperwhites already have buds forming, but the rest of the bulbs will bloom around March time frame.  Too bad, Bert and I are usually the only ones here in March, and no one sees the blooms of the hundreds of daffodils that I have planted over the years.

Weekend at the Farm January 10 - 11, 2020

Above, a few pictures of the Star Garden in winter.

I took a half day of vacation and drove to the farm.  Bert was already here.

• Friday the weather was warm, windy and rainy.  I did nothing except pull a few weeds.
• The voles seem to have taken up residence in my Cadenza bed.  They chewed all the roots off at soil level, and it is dead.  That rose has been here from the beginning, one of the first roses that I planted.  I'm really sad.  The voles have eaten all the wild onion planted in that bed, and I assume they also killed the small rose I planted there last spring.  I assumed it was lack of steady water when my new rose died, but now I suspect voles.  I guess I will plant more roses - but will they be killed as well?
• I dug up several dozen Philippine Lily seedlings growing in paths in the Circle Drive, and I planted them in the Shade Garden.  I did that last weekend as well.  I'm excited about the show that I will have in a few years.  It will take about 3 years to get the first bloom.  As I have written many times, gardening is the quintessential long game.
• I dug up several Ox Eye Daisies growing in paths and moved them to various beds in the Star Garden and the Rose Garden.
• Just to be sure I was right about the voles in the Cadenza bed, and to make them go away and take up residence somewhere else, I stuck a hose straight down into the dirt.  It sank about four feet, easier than cutting butter.  I ran the hose for five minutes into the nest area.  And I did the same in the spot where the other rose was planted.  I cut back the dead rose (it might make it if I fill in around the hollowed out area because a couple of canes are still green and there are some roots around the base.  I added compost around what is left of the root ball.  Go Cadenza!  I'm rooting for you (pun intended).
• I planted a Red Rocket Rusellia in the Rose Garden.
• I planted two Skeleton Leaf Goldeneye in the Long Border.  They were on sale - pretty scraggly looking.  But they are native, drought tolerant, and get large.  The Long Border doesn't get regular water.
• I loaded the wheelbarrow with compost and conditioned the soil in the bed next to the Greenhouse.  I planted two native bunch grasses there.  I have two bunch grasses in the bed opposite, so now I will have a little path of grasses back there.  I expect them to be quite drought tolerant being native prairie grasses.
• I drove to the Antique Rose Emporium and bought two roses. Dr. Grill and Old Blush.  Old Blush is a well known Southern favorite.  It is a profuse bloomer.  I have grown it before at my house in Houston.  The flowers are not good for cutting, they don't last long.  I think there is an inverse relationship between quantity of flowers and how long they last after cutting.  Just a theory of mine.  I don't know anything about Dr. Grill except that it was introduced in 1881.  I can't find anything about Dr. Grill in any of my books of old roses other than it is angular and short on foliage, so I might have chosen badly.  Angular means it shoots out long branches in every direction.  That serves me right for not doing research before I purchased.  I planted Old Blush in a central location next to almost-dead Cadenza.  I planted Dr. Grill at the back of the garden.
• I dug up 3 Henry Duelberg salvias from the Orchard and moved them to the Rose Garden.  I planted two of them around Cadenza.  In case she dies, I will have two salvias ready to take over and fill the spot.  I planted the third one next to Perl d'Or.  I'm trying to get some perennial color in the Rose Garden so that something is blooming in July and August.  It is too hot in high summer for roses to bloom.
• I planted an orange Miss Huff lantana in the Rose Garden as well.
• Bert cut down some big yaupons in my Meadow clearing with the chain saw, and I dragged them to the debris pile.  I really think I'm crazy bothering with all that.  But it does look pretty in there...
• Sunday.  The robins have arrived!  They are at the bird baths and all over the grassy areas.  Their singing fills the cold morning air.  So cheerful!
• I cut away Philippine Lily stalks in several beds.  That is one drawback of the lilies.  They leave a stalk that is quite persistent about staying upright.  Of course, even if the stalks fell over I would still have to gather them up.  Most of the seeds that were still in the pods floated off on the slight breeze when I cut the stalks.  Some of them will take root in random spots (hopefully spots that aren't in paths).
• My Georgetown Tea rose in the Orchard is dying, much the same as the Cadenza in the rose Garden, so I went down there and ran the hose down the deep vole hole underneath the rose.  I cut the canes back dramatically to a place where the canes were still green.  Perhaps it will survive.  I planted Georgetown in January of 2016, so losing this rose is a blow.
• I drove out to the road and shoveled up a bunch of rock.  I laid it down in the path that leads from the back door to the Boardwalk.  I laid it down in a small area that washes out in heavy rains. 
• I did some more cutting and poisoning of yaupon in my Meadow woodland clearing.  Hauled it to the debris pile.
• Cut away dead canes on my Peggy Martin.
• I went back to the woods where I threw the spider lily bulbs that Debra gave me.  I dug them up and planted them in 3 places in the Star Garden.  That is the last of them.
• I planted 3 thyme plants in the Kitchen Herb Garden.  Two lemon thyme and one Mother of Thyme.
• Weeded the Back Beds.  There was a nasty creeping weed with deep roots taking over in there in several places.  I needed to handle that ASAP.  My neighbor down the road loves this plant and recommends it to her clients (you can't buy it in a nursery, you have dig it up in areas where it grows naturally), but I don't.  The flowers are yellow but insignificant.  I grow native plants if they are showy - either their flowers or their form and leaves, but I don't grow natives just because they are native.
• I pulled weeds in the beds that are in the shady part of the Star Garden.
• Pulled weeds in the Rose Garden.  
• The weather was absolutely beautiful.  I didn't do any more work, I just wandered around looking at every flower bed in great detail.  And I walked the Meadow looking at all the tiny wild flowers.  The birds were singing, and I wandered around until dusk.
• Drove in to work on Monday morning.

Miss Huff Lantana January 11, 2020

I bought this lantana on sale.  It's just an orange lantana, pretty common, but since it has an actual name, I'm recording it on the blog.  Miss Huff.  I planted it in the Rose Garden.  I have put some perennials in the Rose Garden this winter to try and have some interest during July and August when it is too hot for the roses to bloom.

Skeleton Leaf Goldeneye January 11, 2020

I bought two of these shrubby native perennials at Buchanan's Nursery .  They were on sale.  I've never grown them, but they were cheap so I thought I'd give them a try.  The Long Border stays pretty dry, and these plants are very drought tolerant.

Weekend at the Farm January 4 - 5, 2020

 A few pictures of the first blooms of White by the Gate Camellia.

Beautiful weather.  Sunny and cold.

• I spent a couple of hours puttering and weeding in the Star Garden in several problem areas.  Winter weeds.
• I raked in the Rose Garden and dumped the leaves in the wild part of the Star Garden.  Pulled some weeds.  
• I drove out the road in the cadet and shoveled up some rocks.. I filled in a few wash outs in the Rose Garden.  I don't want to turn my ankle in a hole.
• I raked leaves down the hill from the house and dumped them in the wild part of the Star Garden.
• Dug up an Autumn Sage that had rooted underneath another Autumn Sage, and I planted it next to the Greenhouse.  Then I dug up a small clump of Giant Rudbeckia and planted it next to the Autumn Sage.  In that bed now I have a Hartlage Wine Sweetshrub, 2 native grasses (can't remember what variety I planted), some parsley, a few columbine, and the Autumn Sage and Rudbeckia.  The bed directly across from it, next to the Greenhouse is empty now.  The columbine that used to grow so prettily there has all disappeared.  I will have to figure out something to plant there.  And then I will have to struggle all summer to keep it alive...
• I walked and walked.  Such beautiful weather!
• Sprayed herbicide here and there in the top part of the meadow - there is a very prolific grass that will take over if I don't do something about it.  Right now it is young, short and thick.  Now is the time to spray.
• The Meadow looks good.  So many seedlings.  Can't wait for spring!
• I also sprayed herbicide around the outside of the Vegetable Garden and at the edge of the new long bed.  Tomorrow if the forecast is clear I will get serious about trying to get rid of weeds that are growing in the paths. 
• Sunday.  I started right to work in the Orchard and beds at the entrance to the Orchard.  I cut and poisoned the blackberry canes that were growing in my iris bed.  I trimmed back the Beautyberry that sprang up uninvited in the Boardwalk Border.  I cut away all the dead canna vegetation and pulled up blackberry canes.  The blackberry bed borders the canna bed and is near the iris bed.  Runners always get in to my flower beds and have to be either pulled up or poisoned.  I pulled weeds.  I cut away the Philippine Lily stems throughout the Orchard.  I have quite a crop of lilies in the Orchard now.  Lots of them are mature enough to bloom and many more are close to being mature enough to throw off blooms.  I also have a good many along the boardwalk.  I started seeding the Orchard and Boardwalk beds a couple of years ago.  I'm beginning to reap the rewards - and it is indeed rewarding!  I cut back the swamp sunflower dead vegetation.  Last year I tried to dig up and move all the swamp sunflower from the Orchard over to the Meadow.  It spreads so aggressively that I have another full bed.  I will consider moving this group over to the meadow some time this winter.  It is too tall and unruly to be in the Orchard.  It is perfect for the Meadow.   I raked in the Orchard and dumped the leaves in to blackberry beds where I saw weeds starting to get pesky.
• I spent some time cutting down yaupon (and poisoning the cuts) in my clearing adjacent to the Meadow.  I dragged it all to the debris pile along a nearby trail.  That is the hardest part.  The area that I have cleared of yaupon is getting bigger!  It is my lifetime project.  Bert calls projects such as this "make-work", and indeed it is. 
• I planted 3 Country Girl mums that I bought at the Arbor Gate several weekends ago.  I planted them in the Star Garden.  I need some color in the Star Garden in the fall.
• I made two cuttings from the mums, scraped the stems, sprinkled them with root hormone and stuck them in pots of soil.  It would be so great if they root!  I did the same a couple of weeks ago with some cuttings, and the greenery is still alive, so they seem to be taking off.  Plenty of time for disaster to befall them and the experiment will fail, but so far so good. 
• I dug up two small seedlings of Henry Duelberg salvia in the Orchard and moved them to the Rose Garden.  They were growing right next to the edge of the beds, so they were not going to be able to stay there.  I planted them next to Belinda's Dream.  I'm sure I will regret that - too crowded, but it's done.
• Two summers ago my neighbor Debra gave me a sack of bulbs.  She wasn't sure what they were called, only that the flower was white.  I planted some of the bulbs in the bed at the edge of the Shade Garden where they would get some sun.  It was also a space that needed something, but also a space that I didn't pay much attention to.  Since I didn't know what they were, I wasn't keen about planting them all over my gardens.  I threw the rest in the woods.  They turned out to be Spider Flowers, so they are good bulbs.  Today I searched for the bulbs I threw in the woods, dug them up and planted them in the Star Garden in 3 places.
• I took my super-strong weeding implement and dug up several dozen Philipping Lily seedlings in the paths of the Circle Drive beds and planted them in the Shade Garden.  Those seeds love to take root in the white rock paths of the Circle.  
• Drove in to work on Monday morning.

Day at the Farm January 1, 2020

New Years Eve - dinner at Brennan's with Bert, Mom, Dad, Gretchen, Keith, Beckett, Josh, Amy, Nancy and Lisa.  Played games at Nancy's.  Drove to the farm the next morning.

• Mostly, I just raked leaves and dumped them behind the Vegetable Garden for later use.  Fallen leaves are a very important part of my gardening - the conditioning of my soil.  I rake up as many as my energy level and my interest level will allow.  The more the better.
• I watered my new camellias.
• I watered in the Rose Garden.  It's really dry.  
• My seedlings are coming along nicely.  There are seedlings and small plantlets everywhere in the Rose Garden:  coreopsis, verbena, poppies, daisies, brown eyed Susans, blue bonnets, tall poppy mallow, Johnny jump ups, purple phacelia, spurred snapdragon. It's so much fun seeing everything grow. 
• Unfortunately, the sprinkler system is acting up.  There does not seem to be any water pressure, and the sprinklers don't rotate in the Star Garden.  They just spray in one spot.  I will have to find someone to come out and take a look.  There is a leak somewhere or some such problem, I will have to get it resolved before the summer temperatures set in.  If this happened in June or July, etc., I would be in a complete panic.
• A few things I did during my short stay last weekend:  I planted more herbs in the Kitchen Herb Garden - 2 oregano , 2 winter savory, 5 marjoram, and 1 sage.  I planted 3 wormwood in the Medicine Garden.
• Last weekend I also planted 6 Summer Nocturne Crinums in the Long Border.  Crinums do well in the Long Border - they do well anywhere.  Nothing can kill them.Without regular irrigation in the bed, I have decided to resort to bulbs such as crinums, paperwhites, and amaryllis. Over the last two seasons I have also added 3 altheas.  I've been impressed with their drought tolerance.
• Drove in to work on Thursday morning.