Monday, February 06, 2012

Hellebore Double Cotton Candy

It has been almost like winter around here. Yesterday it never reached 50 degrees, last night we had a frost. Still no real winter to speak of, the pond froze over for a few days in December I think. 

Wanted to share a few newbies in the garden.
This is one of those cloned named double hellebores. I got it last fall for $8 a steal at a tiny home nursery! It is called Cotton Candy. Looks to have just one flower this year.
I showed another bloom on this Pine Knot Farms 'Southern Belles' Double Pink a couple of posts back. Looks like we'll get 5 blooms, wow!
 I showed you Camellia japonica 'R. L. Wheeler' from Duke Gardens a few weeks ago. We bought this to memorialize Grumpy. Whenwe got it we looked it up on the net and found a lot of very different flowers claiming to be this one. This is clearly a variegated bud in as big as a golf ball maybe bigger, huge. Look at the flower from Duke Gardens. In a few days we hope to see this open in the garden in a few days.
Here is Iris reticulata a full month ahead of schedule, more open everyday. In 2010 it opened March 06, these started opening on Friday.

The cold frames I pulled our mustard greens today and planted more Bok Choy and Musclun lettuce. The old musclun lettuce is about gone. We have all the new seeds I planted coming up, two kinds of beets, bok choy, musclun lettuce, radishes and spinach.

We are still going strong harvesting kale, chard, spinach, carrots and turnip greens.

Today the feeder had its first Northern Flicker to visit for the season. Only twice now I have seen House Finches which up til this year were common at our feeders. Pine Warbler is still a no show as well.

Friday night I heard a cat fight by the front door. Grumpy used to fearlessly chase away all strays that came by here. Valentine our female tuxedo has always been the hunter, not the property protector. Anyway I checked on the cat fight by opening the front door and heard Valentine come in calmly at the back pet door. Looked like she was not involved. Maybe 20 minutes later she is sleeping on top a chair in the living room in sight of the screened porch full glass door, I noticed what looked like a calico cat staring in the glass at her. You know all calico cats are female. Anyway I opened the door and the cat was scared to death, darting about inside the screened porch running into stuff, when she found the way out the screen nearly was pulled entirely out. Later in the night I heard another fight outside, Valentine was in the living room at the time.

6 comments:

tina said...

Poor little stray cat. My heart just breaks for the lost animals. That being said I hate to hear cat fights. We sometimes hear them around here but not often. The strays always wind up getting run over and our cat is pretty street smart so far. Beautiful hellebore and camellia bud.

Indie said...

What a gorgeous hellebore! I only have one little hellebore seedling, and I don't think it's going to bloom this year, sadly.
Maybe your house finches moved over a bit, as I've seen quite a few here near Raleigh this winter. This past week I've seen quite a few new birds, though, with lots of robins - such an early spring!

Janet, The Queen of Seaford said...

All calicoes are female? Seriously? wow.
Love that pink double Hellebore! Even if your Camellia isn't the one you bought, love the variegated bloom.

Caroline Gill said...

What cat antics! Here in UK we call calico cats 'Tortoiseshell' ... and since our cat was a Tortoiseshell, we called her 'Calico'. We lost her last year, aged 19. Your miniature Iris are amazing, so beautiful ... I think you need to get your paints out, Randy!

Nellie from Beyond My Garden said...

That double is really nice looking. It seems to be a good winter for Hellebores. They are all over the blogaspere.
nellie

Meeha Meeha said...

How fortunate to have the iris grow in the garden! They look so crisp and noble in their deep blue clothes :)