Breaking ground

I'm garden-obsessed again. Our new yard is just so big, I think I've been paralyzed about where to start. One Sunday a couple of weeks ago Kurt and I just decided to go for it and rip out the old dance floor/deck that took up most of the yard just outside our back door. We're still digging out the posts that were set in concrete (I'm trying to tackle one a day), but I'm about to pop to start putting plants in. We've left the swing, thinking we could encourage Rosa Dortmund or Lady Banks Rose to travel up and across. Too twee? I like this swing just there. Even when it was the dance floor, I'd set my bookbag down after school, sit down, and lean back to watch all the wildlife in the live oak behind our house.

We're going to dig out the boxed out azaleas you see on the left side of the photo and spread them out in the back yard. Then I'm thinking herbs, tomatoes, roses, maybe a little fruit tree and a modest water feature. It should be a great place for all that as it gets full sun and we can easily create a raised bed there. Can't wait, can't wait, can't wait to get started.

Meanwhile, we are still enjoying surprises in our yard as the season unfolds. The camellias have bloomed steadily since November or December, and they are just now finishing. I was so excited to find that the huge azalea by our back gate is a George Tabor, and it seems to be blooming from the bottom up - just the best greeting as you come and go from the carport. It's the azalea I fell in love with years ago on a garden tour in Charleston. I tried one in Virginia, but the winter did it in. So - wonderful surprise.

Still no sign of life from many of our tropicals. The split leaf philodendron, which are in the most grotesque state right now - huge prehistoric looking dead things. I've cut much of them back, as one or two seem to be coming back from the ground nearby instead of from the old plant. The Queen palm is the one that is the most distressing. It was beautiful and tall and delicate outside our bedroom window and it looks uniformly brown. The elephant ears have not reappeared but the banana plants are sending up new shoots and the lemon tree is blooming (we even had three lemons this winter!) Everyone promises me this hasn't happened since a similarly cold winter in 1958, so I'm hoping we've seen the one bad winter in 50 years.

Louisiana in February

Maybe it was mourning for my Virginia garden or maybe the crush of things to be done elsewhere after our move, but somehow it's been seven months since I recorded anything about this new garden. The whole winter has been one colorful surprise after another as the old camellias in our yard bloomed one at a time. I think I've seen them all now, but yet to identify each one. Here are a few in bloom now.


Unfortunately, the leaves are covered in what I am pretty sure is scale. Mama has helped me research what to do, and it's looking like major surgery is the best bet: prune heavily and then treat with the oil potion as new growth starts. I'm usually so faint of heart when it comes to pruning, but my brother was merciless with his camellias and they have rebounded beautifully in just a year. Next week is Mardi Gras holiday for everyone here, so I'm sharpening the pruning equipment.


Weirdly, the blooms don't seem in the least affected by this plague. Here is one that Mama thinks might be Hishikaraito, but I'm thinking maybe Herme. It's so exuberant, I find myself smiling every time I pass the arrangement on the table. There must be 100 buds on the shrub right now, so there's lots more joy to come! The blooms on the same plant are so different, ranging from solid cerise to this near white to (my favorite) the white-edged pink petals with the cerise flashes on them. I love the big bold stamen too.



























This delicate bloom is on a tall, nearly skeletal, lichen-covered plant outside the kitchen window. I think it's the most delectable thing I've ever seen.


There are two huge plants in the front yard, both covered with blossoms for the past two months.









And then there is this monster bloomer right outside our bedroom window with such complex blossoms that I'm finding it difficult to search out a description:




















Behind our house are several delicate pink japonicas - I'm still not sure if they are the same variety or different again. OK, now that I've posted them side-by-side, I see they are very different.



















We've had so much rain lately that the resurrection fern on the oak trees is lush and the remnants of the banana trees and split leaf philodendron are pretty much compost before I had time to clean up the frost-bitten foliage. I'll update again after getting my hands dirty for the first time next week in LA soil!

Rain in Louisiana!

After much dividing and transplanting to friend's gardens, labeling plants for the new owners and sad farewells to our Virginia garden, we have moved to Lafayette, Louisiana and a Zone 9 (!!!) garden. The plants here so different. They are just well...errrr...big! I guess that's what a 12 month growing season will do for you. On my morning walks I see camellias that are three times as tall as me and live oaks that are so massive and articulated that they really are "live!" This region has had a serious dry spell, and yesterday was the first rain here since June 2nd. I was so thrilled to walk up the path this morning and see that the limbs of the live oaks are no longer covered in shriveled, dried ferns but in lush green Resurrection fern - resurrected.


The house we are renting has some beautiful plants in the garden, but I've been especially grateful for the burst of color the hibiscus outside our sunroom window provides. When everything else looked so scorched and dry, this just seems to keep blooming.

Naming things

Inspired by Becky and Caroline, I am going to work hard at learning the real names of plants in my old and new gardens! After doing a little sleuthing, I think the tall, nearly blindlingly yellow plant in our garden, a pass-along from Jan, is in the Primrose family: Oenothera pilosella. Not totally sure about this, but it sure bears a strong resemblance! It is certainly categorized as a weed, particularly in this NYT article, but I've never had any trouble controlling its growth.

• The salvia that looks like fireworks in the mid-summer is Salvia greggi "Flame"
  
• the groundcover Spreading Clubmoss is Selaginella kraussiana "Aurea"
• the low-growing sedum with the little yellow flowers is Sedum sexangulare "Watch Chain"
• Deutzia gracilis "Nikko"
• Allium giganticus (pictured below in the Cotswolds with John, Kurt and the Laburnum)

2 Weeks Difference

I've just returned from a wonderful spring weekend in northeast Georgia, which is like fast-forwarding through Virginia spring. They are about two weeks ahead of us, so dogwoods and azaleas (just coming on!), Spanish bluebells and trillium are in bloom now. It was lovely and we went "down-down-down" on Mama's hillside to see all the spring surprises. At the bottom, near the creek, was an incredible stand of Jack in the Pulpits and on the trail going back, Mama pointed out trillium.

Back up at the house, the Japanese maple made a perfect contrast for the Spanish bluebells.


Now, back in Virginia, the redbud were beautiful on my trip home from the airport. I'm checking on the emerging plants, watching their growth which seems nearly hourly! The giant allium I planted in the fall is indeed giant, and still coming. Lilies of the Valley from Grammes's garden that Jean brought me have multiplied like crazy and are shooting up everywhere under the holly tree. The pink epimedium is in full bloom and thanks to Mama, I discovered it does just fine when you cut it and bring it in the house!

It's also fun to see the front bed that we put it in last October. Everything survived and the snowdrops are lovely right now. I think the hosta will love it there now that we've opened up some sunny spaces. They are just starting to come up, too.

Bloodroot in bloom

Ta dah!

I'm giddy!

I spotted the Bloodroot this morning while on the phone with Mama and it drove me out in the yard (in the rain) in my bunny robe and running shoes! I don't think I've ever seen anything as full of promise as the Bloodroot, and it has spread this year! Wish I could have managed a better photo this evening, but isn't it fun to see the spring green of the Sweet Woodruff coming up all around in the background? I'm wondering if Caroline's GA Bloodroot has taken hold...