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.

Garden Walk April 06, lots blooming!

Folks, its likely the best time of the year for flowers in our garden. We are finally getting it to what we want. OK yeah right. Part of the joy of gardening in experimentation and exploration.

Anyway there is a lot of photos to share, let me begin..

  Creeping phlox.

  Creeping phlox and primrose together.

 Creeping phlox.

 Woodland phlox.

Muscari with an honey bee!

Pansies, we have lots of different pansies, this is just one of them. Survived an 8 degree night this past winter as you can see. Planted last fall.

 Daffodil 'Hawera'

 Daffodil ' Mt Hood'

Daffodil 'Actaea' Showy and tall makes a great cut flower!

 Daffodil 'Broadway Star' one of my favorites for sure.

Daffodil 'Sailboat' These produce a lot of flowers!

Daffodil 'Sir Winston Churchill'

 Daffodil 'Quail' at least I think it is Quail.

Daffodil 'Pipit'

Daffodil 'Sound'

Daffodil 'Delibe' drop dead gorgeous!

 Daffodil 'Pink Charms' never seen any pink on this.

Daffodil 'Silver Smiles'

Daffodil 'Falconet' Nice..

 
Snow Flakes!

 Penny's Pink hellebore. Wow wow!

 Bleeding Heart, this is our newest one Meg brought back from Wilmington! Nearly 3 foot tall.

 This is a tiny Wild Bleeding Heart. About 6 inches tall.

Bleeding Heart from the front garden.

 15+ year old primrose. The oldest in our garden. Has been known to shoot about 50 stems of blooms, slow to burst this year.

 We've had this primrose 3 years, man its crazy.

I split this primrose when we planted it, the other plant looks almost as good as this one.

 Blue primrose

 Red primrose

Purple primrose.

Native anemone "Windflower"in our garden.

Our newest camellia, Camellia X 'Tiny Princess'. Meg and I visited the Coker Arboretum in March of 2010 and saw this blooming with thousands of fallen flowers covering the ground. Anyway Camellia Forest had it and I brought it home, see my post from 2010 about it with photos at 

JC Raulston Arboretum winter flowers.

Visited the JC Raulston Arboretum on January 16th, it was in the 20s if I recall it was cold. We had a few days before a 9 degree night, which did little damage. Here are some of the flowers I found.

The only blooming camellia was this Camellia X vernalis 'Ginryu'. Small blooms around 1 1/2 inch, might have helped it from freezing having small blooms. The arboretum only has a few camellia bushes.

 Snow drops I found only a small patch of them. These are Galanthus plicatus. Wish I could grow these. We had babies under ours last year, not sure if they survived, the chickens might have gotten them.

Lots of Helleborus foetidus  'Pontarlier' in bloom.

Winter Flowering Iris, Iris unguicularis  Every time I see this in bloom in the winter is seems so out of place.

 Fragrant Wintersweet, Chimonanthus praecox This was a new plant for me, the aroma caught me as I was walking by two huge bushes of these in bloom. The blooms are small maybe an half inch. I want some for the garden and I think it might tolerate shade too.

Ozark Witchhazel, Hamamelis vernalis This witchhazel really got my attention!

Ozark Witchhazel, Hamamelis vernalis 'Quasimodo' This one was the smallest in the garden I almost missed seeing it.

Red Common Witchhazel, Hamamelis xintermedia 'Diane' 
This one had big blooms but fewer of them. I liked it a lot.

 Common Witchhazel, Hamamelis xintermedia 'Aurora' This witchhazel was near the main entrance and it was giving quite the show!

In our garden the only witchhazel has lots of buds, but they have not opened yet.

Winter Spicebush, Lindera chienii  This was a new flowering shrub for me, very interesting and about 12 foot around, very big.

Prunus mume ' Rose bud' This flowering apricot was  just opening up. The gardens had three different Prunus mumes in bloom, the bright sun made for horrible photos.