2016 is looking good so far in our garden!

We took a 2 week travel trip over Christmas and New Years, when we returned the garden surprised us with so much blooming. It had been very warm for December and the area also had record rain falls.

I managed to get these photos of most of what was blooming. more hellebores will be opening soon. It is going down to 19 degrees tomorrow night, the open camellia blooms will brown out for sure.

One more thing we are starting our 8th year at this garden blog, time flies doesn't it. Sorry we don't get much time on this blog, spend too much time on Facebook.

Daphne is in full bloom in a pot, I was not able to take in the aroma today, it was in the mid 50s. We lost 2 other daphnes in the last winter, so we are down to one.

 I think this camellia is Greensboro Red, the flower is huge, 4-5 inches around! This shrub is around 5 foot tall and just starting to get more than a few blooms on it.

 This pink camellia is Debutante, a very old camellia. I find this camellia in gardens all over, even in Louisiana last week.

 Here is an locally crossed variety of camellia from Chapel Hill. It is called Crimson Candles and is featured in the photo above and below..

 This candy striped camellia is called La Peppermint. It is a slow grower and we find the flowers to open when its very cold and some years the frosts gets all the blooms before it opens.

This hellebore is one of my babies, I have two of these blooming in the garden right now. Babies I mean crosses that seeded in our garden by the help of bees.

 This hellebore is doing very well as you can see. We almost lost this plant a few years ago, it has recovered. It is a H. niger cross that is sterile, no babies from this one.

 Here is a sweet double hellebore that is doing great in the garden.

Below is a H. niger cross called Merlin. Sorry for the bad photo. It did poorly last year, doing great this year.

Below is some tommy crocuses that were a total surprise in the garden.

 This crocus was in another portion of the garden, not sure if it is a tommy or another species.