1 Freeze, 2 Frosts, 400 Posts

This past week my corner of Tidewater had its first below freezing weather, and my more tender plants and the hanging-on-to-the-bitter-end summer annuals are now showing the results. Unaffected by this brief dip below the 32 °F mark are the Camellia sasanqua in my garden. So I thought I would share a few photos I took of them today.  This post will be my 400th, and while you look at the pretty camellia pictures I will throw in a few statistics about my blog that the good people at Google have been kind enough to provide me.

Camellia sasanqua 'Kanjiro'


At the time of this writing, I have had 207,609 individual pageviews.  My top three most viewed posts are:

#1 Vitex agnus-castus (Chaste Tree)
This post has 5395 pageviews which is almost 4 times as many as the next most viewed post.  The vitex post was one I wrote just a few months after starting the blog, The writing was not stellar, and the pictures were not that great.  I attribute its popularity to people searching the internet for information about vitex's medicinal properties.

#2 Bloom Day - The Neglected Groaning Board
I am not sure why this post was so popular, but the pictures were good if I do say so myself.  It is one of two Bloom Days in the top ten.

#3 Jasminum nudiflorum:  A Yellow Signal of Change
This was my second post discussing winter jasmine.  I guess I am not the only who appreciates this plant's dead-of-winter bloom time.

Camellia sasanqua 'Mine-No-Yuki'


Most of the people coming to my blog have come from searching Google, Google UK and Bing.  My top three search terms, in order, are "vitex agnus castus", "tidewater gardener" and appropriately enough "camellia sasanqua".

I also get a lot of traffic from other blogs like Danger Garden, Pardise Express, May Dreams Gardens, Dirt Therapy and Rock Rose.  All of which were in the top 10 list of referring URLs.  I will not name the URL that is responsible for my third greatest source of referrals. It is an adult movie site that specializes in things that most people don't consider very sexy.  I think the "water" part of my blogs title brings them here.  Perhaps you get the picture.

Camellia sasanqua 'Yuletide'


Sometimes ask myself why I keep blogging.  I think it because I like to share, not so much in a material way, but like most humans I like to share (and compare) my experiences with other people.  It is one of the ways we learn. As it has been said before by other bloggers, I have met so many like-minded people through blogging I never would have met otherwise. Most of them are virtual acquantances, but several are actual. Would I blog if no one else ever looked at what I wrote or photographed?  Maybe.  Besides sharing, I also blog as an exercise in personal journaling.  Sometimes I enjoy looking back at where my head was at some point in the past.  This may really come in handy when a future me starts losing more brain cells, or maybe by then I will be wondering why I ever bothered.  However, I want thank you for bothering to visit A Tidewater Gardener, whether its regularly, occasionally or just once.