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Saturday, April 04, 2009

Free Manure and Hellebores!

Friday Meg and I went and picked up a 10' trailer full of horse manure. The manure was free , we were given the phone number of a horse farm not a mile from the house by the owner of Treefrog Nursery up the road. Because of the rain we have been having and my bald van tires the van got stuck twice behind this farm. Luckily they pulled us out with the tractor and loaded the trailer with 4 scoops of manure for us! Good neighbors no question!



Here is one of the two Camellias we purchased at Treefrog Nursery. The other is a double with huge red blossoms. This plant is around 3 foot tall. We still need to get about 5-6 more camellias.


Meg's sister brought her parents over today and she gave us these two huge hellebores from her garden in Chapel Hill. One plant had 18 blooms the other 20, seeds galore too.


These hellebores were in 3 gallon containers, I'm impressed such a nice gift.


While planting 2 camelias and 2 hellebores, I dug up the pignut hickory seed sprouting. I potted it, we'll see if I can grow one myself.




The morning included a hike with the Duke Natural History Group at Occoneechee State Preserve. I found this Brown Elfin on Spring Beauty. I'd never seen Brown Elfins near the Eno River at the park always found them along the Brown Elfin Knob Trail. Meg found 5 other Brown Elfins, in all we had 7 a pretty good number.




All that white among the grass is Spring Beauties, so beautiful don't you think?




And the prize of our morning Oconee Bells, Shortia galacifolia a new plant for me. Likely planted in this location as it is about 500 miles out of its range. We climbed a water fall to get to see and photograph them, not an easy task with my camera in tow.



For those of you that are bird watchers we also had our first of spring birds. Heard calling an Ovenbird then along the Eno River we heard then saw a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher.

15 comments:

  1. Free manure and Hellebores. What a perfect day.

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  2. Very nice gifts! Lucky you! And the camellia is beautiful.

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  3. I have someone who will give me some horse manure. I plan on putting it on my compost pile, which is near my neighbors' yards. Did yours have a strong odor?

    I love those hellebores!

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  4. Hi Randy- Boy it looks like you and Meg will be busy. There is a place not too far from here (2 hours) that has horse manure mixed with shavings and I want to go get some. I am going to try hellebores this year. I learned at a garden class that most zone 5 stuff will live here. I couldn't get that in writing though.
    Heather

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  5. Nice pic of the hellebores. Love dark colored flowers.

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  6. Free manure.. thats nice. A very good neighborhood I guess.... cheers! ~ bangchik

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  7. Free manure sounds great! I need to find a horse ranch and do the same. Very nice woods shot!

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  8. I love the hellebores. I need to see if they'd be ok in zone 4. What a great gift.

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  9. Horse manure - I like it! I get it from a friend who mixes it with some chicken manure! Your garden will be so happy!

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  10. Nothing better for a garden than horse manure. What is the name of the pink Camellia?

    The Oconee Bells are beautiful. Your picture reminds me of a place we used to visit when we lived in PA, Enlow Fork. There was a gorgeous spread of Blue-Eyed Mary there.

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  11. Nothing better than free! The hellebores are quite big. Very pretty picture of the Oconee Bells.

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  12. I think Keewee summed it up best! Those are some very nice hellebores specimens you received. What a nice day!

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  13. Everyone thanks for commenting, we very much appreciate it.

    Sue,

    No odor at all the manure is well seasoned and not even hot.

    Heather,
    Meg says your goats can make you good manure. Two hours the gas alone would not make it worth while to get unless you just happened to be going there anyway. Bet if you ask 10 horse farms one will give you manure.

    Tatyana,
    Meg says chichen manure is the best fertilizer.

    Sweet Bay don't know the name this nursery sells to a lot of landscapers and these were not tagged.

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  14. Thanks, when I contact the lady with the horses, I'll ask if it's seasoned.

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  15. I love that photo of the Brown Elfin on Spring Beauty. I find isolated spring beauty and never imagined it would carpet an area like that.

    I think my sampling other blogs is going to be put on hold while i catch up with everything on yours. I'll stop commenting unless I can't help myself. I think it's going to be a real challenge to remain silent.

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