A Tidewater Gardener: My Garden

Showing posts with label My Garden. Show all posts

November 30, 2012

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.

June 4, 2012

A Mercedes in the Garden

Turning the corner coming home from work last night, my stomach immediately sank when I saw my house. Though it looked surreal and should have been a what-in-the-hell Hank Hill kind of moment, I knew exactly what I was seeing. There was a Mercedes in my garden.

It seems that neighbor #1 (in a sweet little silver Mercedes Kompressor) was heading out of the neighborhood in front of my house when neighbor #2 approached the intersection (in a much larger SUV) not seeing neighbor #1, who was broadsided, spun around, jumping the curb, crashing the fence and ending up in the garden. This all happened mere minutes before I got home, in fact, I beat the police to the scene.

Once I knew no one was injured, my thoughts turned to the garden, which happened to be looking right nice when I last left it. I was anxious to see what was flattened under the car, and it seemed to take forever for the tow truck to arrive. Being a dutiful garden blogger, ever on the lookout for post material, I started snapping pics as the time passed.

Don't you like how the side light from the car offers a nice color echo to the blooming Lantana 'Miss Huff'?

We are just entering peak daylily season here in Tidewater. I lost 5 or 6 to the accident.

I had a landscape design teacher once tell me that silver was the great garden unifier, blending colors throughout the garden. Don't you like how the bright foliage of Abelia x 'Sunrise' is reflected by the pride of German engineering.

Several years ago former local blogger Jeff Joyner stopped by the store and gave me a great wealth of plants. All of them are from families not normally hardy here, but Jeff is a zone pusher. Unfortunately his pushing talents are better than mine, and this Sinningia 'Butter and Cream' is the only thing to make it, and was nearly taken out Sunday night.

With the car gone I was able to make an assessment.

This is what I discovered:
- no one was hurt
- no one walking their dog or pushing a stroller on our sidewalk when it happened
- my son was no out front on his bike
- being late getting home prevented my car, or my person from being involved
- I have good neighbors, and the young lady involved offered to come help me fix the garden, which she said is her favorite in the neighborhood
- I now have more sun and opportunities to plant new things

Considering what could have been, all and all it turned out to be a good day.

January 8, 2012

Tetrapanax papyrifera 'Steroidal Giant'

A few years ago a friend of mine asked if I wanted a small piece of Tetrapanax papyrifera dug from her garden. I was familiar with the plant from the display gardens at work, and I was also familiar with how much real estate it demanded and how weedy it could become. Just as I was about to say "no thank you", she mentioned that this one was one called 'Steroidal Giant'. Intrigued I asked what made it different, and she told me that the plant would get at least 10' tall and the leaves would get 3' across. I promptly accepted, and then (like so many other plant decisions I have made) I would just have to figure out where the hell I would plant it.

The young plant ended up being put in the shade of a large Willow Oak in the back garden, but it did get a blast of morning sun. Because of the Oak, the bed tends to be on the dry side, so I gave the new plant plenty of water that summer. It grew very well and died to the ground in the fall. Late the next spring it came back to life with the new shoot emerging from the ground covered in brown felt, looking like a bizarre claw-like structure. It quickly shot up, and by the end of the summer a substantial trunk had developed. That winter the foliage died back, and I thought for sure the trunk would die too. However, the next spring, several of the "claws" emerged from the top and grew to an impressively substantial size by early summer, and I had Tetrapanax coming up all over the place. By fall the plant was easily 10' tall, and by mid-November a bloom stalk emerged.

Last winter (2010/2011) all of my plants, including the Tetrapanax were flash-frozen by the severe and early cold weather we had in December.

Like many parts of the country, we have had a mild winter so far this year, and the Tetrapanax was able to mellow and take on some rich colors. The mid-ribs turned pink, the upper leaves were burgundy and from underneath they were amber. The pictures below were taken last Sunday on New Year's Day.

By today, after a low in the 20's this week, all was brown and the leaves are falling off.

Tetrapanax papyrifera is native to Taiwan and southern mainland China, where it has been used for close to 2000 years in traditional medicine and to make a fine paper from the pith. This paper is very white and readily absorbs liquids, so inks and dyes take to it well. One of its common names is Rice Paper Plant, but it should not to be confused with either rice or Edgeworthia, which also goes by that name. The paper made from this plant was also used to make fairly realistic artificial flowers and to staunch bleeding. In the 1800's, an export trade arose in China of watercolors painted on this paper, with the subjects showing Chinese flora and fauna or scenes of everyday life.

Despite its exotic origins, Tetrapanax papyrifera grows pretty easily here in the coolest part of zone 8, further south it is a deciduous shrub, and further inland to zone 7 it is a root hardy perennial. Though it is listed as preferring full sun to partial shade, mine has done well in mostly shade, and after the first season has needed no extra summer moisture. It spreads by underground stems and many come up every summer. They are easy to pull up, and I pot a few to give away and the rest are composted, but I wouldn't turn my back on any strays.

If you would like to learn more about this plant, the paper made from it and the paintings, Harvard University has an interesting page on the topic, which is where I got some of the information in this post.

A Tidewater Gardener will mark its fourth anniversary later in the month. Several times since I started this gardening blog, I have had to occasionally remind myself to actually talk about gardening and garden plants (especially since I am so easily distracted). So this post was an effort to bring the topic back home.

November 24, 2010

Old Friends and Unexpected Guests

The past week has been an especially busy and long one for me with work. On Thursday we got in our Christmas trees and spent the next four days getting them cut, put in stands, sprayed with Wilt Pruf, graded, priced and tagged. Our trees come from the mountains of North Carolina where the grower told me they had an ideal summer for Fraser Firs (it was good to here that at least someplace in this country had a nice summer). Monday our wreaths and roping came in, which all had to be sorted as well. Everything is ready now, and all we have to do is sell them, which judging by this past weekend's activity should be no problem (I say with crossed fingers). Though I am feeling every week of my 50 years, I can at least take a breath for a few days.

Since I have been so focused on the upcoming season, I guess it only appropriate that our beautiful fall is starting to morph into "the big drop" when color is shed from the trees. While not completely gone it is definitely on its way out. Fortunately my garden is offering other distractions right now. I got my pansies in about a month ago, and so far none have been stolen. I will spare you pictures until the cold time when I have nothing else to show. One of my favorite companions for the pansies is Giant Red Mustard (Brassica juncea var. rugosa), and I am at the point now that I could not garden in the winter without this plant. I love its color, crinkled foliage and resilience.

The only perennial I have ever planted for its fall foliage is Amsonia hubrichtii or Bluestar. In fact I do not really care for its flowers which are skim milk blue, one of my least favorite garden colors. But the foliage texture and fall show make me forget the flowers.

Yesterday I also noted that my Hime Quince (Chaenomeles) had its first bloom of the season, prompting me to make note this year of just how long it will bloom.

We have yet to have a frost which is fine with me, so I can still enjoy the foliage combo of my Golden Jasmine (Jasminum officinale 'Aureum') and Big Red Judy Coleus (Solenostemon scutellarioides 'Big Red Judy'). I have already made a date with Judy for next summer.

I was also surprised to see one of my new additions blooming so early. I was under the impression that Algerian Iris (Iris unguicularis) would bloom in late winter, but I will not deny this blossom.

You would think that with its lush tropical foliage that Tetrapanax (T. papyrifer 'Steroidal Giant') would have suffered through this summer's drought, but it grew every bit of 10' and a few weeks ago it started to flower. Never having seen it bloom, I was surprised by the flowers, though I am not ready to declare them beautiful.

I hope each of you has a chance in the next few days to reconnect with friends and family and perhaps meet someone new as well.

Please have a happy and safe Thanksgiving!