Bloom Day November 2013

The camellia I grew from seed at least 7 years ago has finally finally FINALLY bloomed! It skulked behind the Joe Pye Weed next to the horse stalls in the paddock behind the house for a long time before it suddenly shot up last year. The seed parent was the single white species Camellia sasanqua, so I was expecting a single white. It's pink! I love white flowers but I'm even more thrilled that it's pink. Sweetly fragrant too, as was its parent and as are many sasanqua cultivars.

The plant is very tall and slender because I planted it right next to the stalls (:/), and because of competition with Joe Pye. But hey, I didn't plant the Joe Pye there, it grew there by itself, and
who would cut this down?

Willowleaf aster 'Miss Bessie' last week, before the hard freezes of the past couple of days.

About a third of her flowers still remain and the bees are still buzzing all around her.

There are a few buds and flowers on 'Climbing Old Blush' that survived the dip into the 20's. It's usual for China roses to bloom into November and December, and they remain green all winter. Elizabeth Lawrence wrote of going out in the snow on Christmas Eve to pick some frost bitten buds from her Climbing Pink Daily as she called it when she lived in Raleigh, NC, about 30 miles from where my garden resides.

To see more gardens in bloom visit Carol at May Dreams Gardens, host of Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day.

NC State Fair

We usually go to the State Fair on the first Friday that it's open. I didn't want to lug my camera around the fair, so I used G's iPhone to take pictures.

I'm always surprised by how much I enjoy the cut flower competition/ exhibits, especially the plants that I don't or can't grow in my garden.

I can never really see coleus fitting anywhere in my garden -- too gaudy, too
tropical in appearance -- but I can be wowed by the various patterns and electric colors.

I hate houseplants (and they hate me), except for my
Christmas cactus, but I was impressed by this begonia

and this Plectranthus.

I love dahlias and grow them, just not very well. Many cultivars struggle in our heat or die outright and they do not tolerate drought happily. Also, like tomatoes they need to be staked before they grow tall, and staking with forethought seems to be beyond my abilities. Dahlias perform very well in our mountain region however, and one of the organizers told me that many State Fair dahlia entries come from the mountains. When I was a kid my family took a lot of trips to the mountains and I remember seeing all of the lemon yellow daylilies (as common as the orange ditch lilies here) and the dinnerplate dahlias that many people grew in their yards.

So many beautiful types and colors.

The last two were my favorites.

I also enjoy looking at the roses, many of them hybrid teas, floribundas, grandifloras
or David Austin roses, all of which are the equivalent of the bubble boy in our climate.

The miniature rose collection.

Unfortunately few of the ribbon tags had names
on them this year, but this one did: 'Orangeade'.

I was happy to see the swamp sunflowers. Perfect timing for the state fair!

Brazilian blue sage and Mexican bush sage. The
white sage is Danielle's Dream Mexican bush sage.

Can anyone tell me the name of this mum? I must have it!

This bumble had followed the blooms inside
and was going from flower to flower.

There were a number of plantings around the garden exhibits, like this gorgeous plumbago,

aromatic aster 'Raydon's Favorite'

and swamp tickseed. I used to have swamp tickseed but I think my hardy ginger ate it.
It's a beautiful low-growing tickseed and like swamp sunflower the flowers really pop.

There were competitions with garden plots planted according to different themes. The best garden
plot I ever saw was a beautiful and intricate Harry Potter-themed garden that we saw years ago.

I loved those dark chocolate-y sunflowers. Typically I don't like
red sunflowers, but the depth of color on these was excellent.

First frost and willowleaf aster 'Miss Bessie'

The first frost occurred as usual during the State Fair. No matter how warm the weather is beforehand, frost usually arrives during the third week in October.

The first frost turned the entire garden pewter, with sparkles.

Chrysanthemum 'Venus' was rather sad afterwards. Here she is before. (PS I don't care what those crazy taxonomists are calling mums these days, they will always be Chrysanthemums to me.)

The 'Autumn Amethyst' Encore Azaleas lost this crop of flowers but already has more. It almost always blooms into November, until a hard freeze kills all of the buds.

Pre frost

Post frost

Pre frost

Post frost. The beautyberry leaves froze right off.

But, like always, 'Miss Bessie' is impervious to Jack Frost.

While everything else is winding down, frost and willow leaf aster 'Miss Bessie' are blooming with abandon, and the insects flock to them for food in droves.

I have a question for some of you photographers out there. Why is the sky so odd in some of the pictures? In some the sky looks perfect, real life blue, and in others it's an white with strange-looking clouds. Can you tell me why this is?