More Spring....

Overall, it still looks pretty dreary out there in my garden.  But there are a few plants that are bravely making their way and sharing their beauty.

The flowering plum is covered with blossoms.  It will get its purple leaves later.   That is a close-up of its blooms above.

It grows next to - way too close to - a holly that will bloom later.  The forsythia bush is also there.  Think how pretty this would all look if the forsythia was well pruned and in full bloom with periwinkle in full bloom beneath it.  And daffodils to boot.  There is always hope...

Speaking of daffodils... There are several different kinds of daffodils here and there in my yard.  None in abundance this year, though.  This beauty was looking down ~ maybe because it is raining.

The beautiful blue hyacinths are still blooming.

My daphne bushes don't look all that great; the winter has been hard on them.  But they are blooming.  They smell like heaven.  Daphne are notoriously difficult and short-lived so I am pleased to have had mine for so long.

It appeared as though maybe my variegated hydrangea hadn't made it through the winter.  But that is ~ thankfully ~ not the case.

And my rose bushes are starting to show their new leaves.   This is New Dawn, my climbing rose.

Such charming muscari...   I love this picture.

A pot full of Johnnies on the corner of my deck. 

Oh, wonderful, unabashedly cheerful Johnnies.

Have a beautiful day!

Daphne odora...

A number of days ago I said that I would do a post about my Daphne bushes, so here it is! Not too long after moving to North Carolina, I was wandering around the plant section of a store when I smelled a most amazing fragrance. Of course, I had to hunt it down. And, then, of course, I had to bring the plants home with me. Not one, but two small Daphne bushes. One had white flowers and one had pink flowers. I have to admit, I hadn't heard of Daphne before. And I bought the plants without knowing a thing about growing them. When I got home, I looked them up in my Southern Living Garden Book and found out that they had a reputation of being picky prima donnas. Ooops! I felt doomed and decided then and there that I would not ever again buy a plant without researching it first.




Until I was ready to plant them, I put them out under some trees with other plants waiting to get planted. I forgot to water them. The wind blew them over so not even the rain fell into their containers. They wilted. I up-righted them and watered them. Then I repeated the whole process. Probably for about a year. Yup. And then they bloomed! Would you believe it? I was accidentally giving them what they needed: not too much water. When I finally did put them in their pots, I mixed sand in with the potting soil to make a very well drained soil for them. Just about the only water they get is rain. I also planted a living ground cover to shade their soil; I used a Campanula that I brought from California.

(The plant started to tilt so I used the brick to hold it upright.)

They are on the east side of the house and when the shadows shift in the Fall, they get a little more sun than usual and end up with their leaves sunburned. And even though I am supposed to feed them each year after they bloom, I always forget. Did I mention that I have had them for five years now? Despite my neglect, or maybe because of it, they continue to bloom every winter for me. And their fragrance is absolutely wonderful.


Have a beautiful day!

Chickie update

Bloom Day January 2010...

Quite honestly, the only plants that are truly blooming are my beloved, cheerful Johnnies. Maybe that is cheating because if not tricked into blooming in the fall, they wouldn’t bloom until the spring.



But I am so thankful to have them. And they don’t seem to complain about being persuaded to flower throughout the winter for me.




The African violet my sister-in-law brought me at Thanksgiving is still blooming, so I think it is probably o.k. for me to take credit for keeping it going. Although, now that I have said that, it will probably stop blooming and then die.

{Saintpaulia}

I am starting to see leaf buds on many of my plants which gives me hope that spring actually will come this year. But there aren’t many flower buds yet. My camellia is one of the ones with flower buds.

{Camellia - I don't know the rest; I've lost the plant tag.}

The buds on this daphne will soon open to their fragrant white blooms.

{Daphne odora 'Alba'}

And you can already see the pink forming on this daphne.

{Daphne odora}

My Purple Rain pansies look a bit bedraggled, but they continue to struggle on. I guess winter is taking its toll on them as it is on me.

{Viola x wittrockiana 'Purple Rain'}

It finally warmed up enough that I was able to look into my greenhouse without fear of heat escaping and I was absolutely thrilled to find that everything is doing well. It was such a relief to know that my plants stayed warm enough not to be damaged while it was so cold outside. And I found a tiny pink bud!

{Erodium reichardii 'Charm'}

One of my pitcher plants has a bud on it. I think that is the bud I am most excited about right now.

{Sarracenia flava}

But my Johnnies continue to be my favorites as they unabashedly cheer me on through winter.


Have a beautiful day!