Still here

Still here and still gardening. Part of the reason I stopped blogging is that my camera started acting up way back in 2015. The exposures were getting all wonky unless the light was just right.

I bought a new Pentax in 2018. Unfortunately I don't like it that much, or I don't know how to use it. Even more unfortunately I didnt even try it out until the 30 day return window was closed. Don't ask me why, I'm still kicking myself over that one. But since I spent the money I feel like I have to use it. I feel betrayed since I loved my other 2 Pentax cameras so much, but it could be as I get used to it I'll like it as much as the others.

We didn't get much fall color this year. We haven't in several years, actually. Last year the color was great in Wake County, one county north and west of us, but this year tropical storm Zeta ripped all of the leaves all in the western half of the state. We were starting to get some color, but then the 6 and a half inches of rain from tropical storm Eta finished off the ones here as well. We've been hit by rain from every single hurricane/tropical storm but one.

Fothergilla 'Mt Airy' might still color up fully, although it has never turned the fire engine red I've seen elsewhere.

The willowleaf spicebushes were beautiful, a glowing golden orange tinted with red. They never disappoint. Neither do the swamp cyrillas. The spicebushes are done and the brown leaves will remain until the new leaves push them out. The cyrillas have just started to turn yellow. They often have pumpkin orange and scarlet color well into December. I got over half a dozen seedlings going this year and will plant them next to to the old yard site once they're big enough.

I finally found the perfect spot for the hardy ginger. It's one of those plants that spreads all over but won't bloom and looks miserable in a hot dry year. So I planted some in front of where the buckets are dumped after soaking hay and it loves in there. It started blooming in August and will continue until a hard freeze cuts it down. They have a sweet fragrance that's like a cross between Japanese honeysuckle and coconut.

I have not, however, found the perfect spot for Camellia 'Yume'.

I planted Yume at the back of the big perennial bed, where rabbits or deer promptly ate it to the ground. So I put wire mesh around it and it just sat there. In spite of feeding, in spite of this being a wet year, it didn't grow an inch. Couldn't compete with the 2 loblolly pines in back of the bed I guess. Other people can grow camellias on high ground under pines but it didn't work for me. It wasnt even that close to the pine trees, but pine tree roots go everywhere.

'Mine-No-Yuki' has found a semi permanent place on the porch next to the bird feeders, where it has espaliered itself rather elegantly against the porch railing. The chickadees especially like to use its branches as a perch, both for waiting for an opening at the feeder and as a place to crack open sunflower seeds.

The happiest camellia is one I grew from seed from a white Camellia sasanqua, in a very wet place next to the stalls where the water table bubbles up out of the ground.

I think it grew up as a tree because of the Joe Pye Weed (that grew wild there) around the base of it. I have never pruned it and rather like the unexpected tree form. The flowers are sweetly fragrant and is even strong from a distance when the flowers start to dry out. Michael Dirr that camellias like moist well drained acid soil with a lot of organic matter. The camellia is getting everything but the well drained part. The obvious answer is to plant Yuma next to the stalls as well, since it's also a sasanqua, but I'd like to get some cuttings going in case I lose it.

The rugosas haven't even begun to turn, but like cyrillas they are late turners. Since there is little fall color going on now here is the garden covered in ice crystals from yesterday's frost.

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