Camellias Planted!

Last Sunday I attempted to plant the new 3 gallon camellias, but my back went out on me. I was hurting real bad for several days. Yet I pushed on and took it very easy and by Thursday I was much better. I still have minor twinges but they are manageable.

Our three year old Camellia sinensis is blooming, it is a tea camellia. It has just been hanging on ever since we planted it, so seeing flowers on it was really nice. This plant has a long way to go before we can pick tea leaves off it it.

Three years ago we bought Camellia Sasanqua 'Tsumaorigasa' Our plant died this summer... But it produced seeds last year and we harvested some of them, but don't know if the seeds I planted germinated. Yesterday I found what looks to be a seedling next to the dead tree trunk, it could be a sprout, I'm not sure. Still excited to see our first natural camellia seedling in the garden. Camellias can be different than the parent plants, so we'll have to wait and see.

 

Camellia Sasanqua 'Moon Festival' our first bloom about 4 inches wide.

Not the best photo, it is pinker than it looks here.

Anyway yesterday I planted a 3 gallon Camellia Sasanqua 'Leslie Ann' and today I planted a 3 gallon Camellia Sasanqua 'Moon Festival' in the front side garden by the wooden fence. Meg and I cut down 3 Eastern Red Buds hanging over the garden, blocking sunlight. We also cut down a 6 inch Black Jack Oak, hated to take it down but that garden needs more sunlight.

I also managed to plant the 3 double hellebores I purchased weeks ago and 4 camellia seedlings sprouted last winter. I'm worried what I thought were camellia seedlings we dug up in Wilmington at Sharna's might not even be camellias, the leaves seem very thin when compared to the camellias I grew from seed. I have a new batch of seeds from her garden to sprout this winter too.

 I read somewhere about camellia apples, maybe NeilJean's blog. Never seen one before. Here is one from Sharna's garden in Wilmington, NC. Below is a freshly opened up seed pod. Now is the time to look for seeds on camellias. It might take 3-5 years before you know what the flowers will look like, so your garden would be full of mysteries for years... Sprouting camellia seeds, I wrap them in a wet paper towel and seal them up in a ziploc bag and wait 4- 8 weeks for them to sprout. I change the paper towel after 4 weeks.

The cold frames are all planted now, boxed but not covered yet. We'll have arugula, rainbow, carnival and nantes carrots, mesclun and gourmet lettuce, curly and lacinato kale, spinach, watermelon radish,  scarlet radish, Swiss chard and purple top turnips. We now have 2- 6 ft x 8 ft and one 6 ft x 10 ft cold frames. Two of the frames have lots of acorns falling on them, so we'll cover them before the oak leaves fall.

Meg planted a new kitchen window herb garden, with my help from the rototiller. She planted Saint John's Wort, Rue, Sorrel, Suchon and Yarrow. She brought these plants home from the Chestnut Herb Nursery at the Southeastern Women's Herbal Conference last weekend. She also planted seeds including chamomile, California poppies and echinacea. We had some Elephant garlic left over from some I bought this summer so she planted 3 cloves and some onion sets too.

I know I posted a photos of this fall crocus in a recent post, today they were open to about 5 inches wide, very cool.

Lastly this night blooming cereus had two blooms mid week during a cold and windy night. I have never seen one of these still open in the morning, but then again they usually bloom during the heat of summer. The cold air must have kept it open. We had acorns falling 40-50 at a time, it sounded like we were in a war zone! The acorns hit the roof, roll down and hit the deck and sometimes hit the metal railings.

Huge news, Meg agreed to cut Bubba down to 6-7 foot tall today. Bubba was a 14 foot tall avocado tree she planted from seed. Bubba for the past 2 years has been too big for our living room during the winter, leaning over more each year, it was nearly 90 degrees so we cut it off. Growing side ways, this year it grew several new limbs straight up and nearly 4 foot tall so we felt the new growth would take over.

The bees have been active and friendly, still bringing in pollen packets. I witnessed a small orientation flight today. I also noted lots of new bees just learning to fly clinging to the side of the hive, it was chilly so I think they are OK. Last thing this afternoon I saw a Worm Snake under the Leslie Ann camellia, doubt we'll be seeing any more smakes this year. Worm Snakes are less than a foot long and they eat slugs!

Harvest, Mantis and Stone House

Yesterday I cleaned up the yard and garden a bit, between running errands. So I figured it was way past time to dig the potatoes.

Here are some of the last of the tomatoes, still pretty tasty. The green beans are our first Kentucky Wonders, tasty but nothing as good as a fresh yellow wax bean. The peppers are sweet peppers we grew from seed, likely more than a dozen ready to harvest in the garden right now.

Meg planted two kinds of potatoes, these were the strangest ones harvested, you will not find them in the store like this.

In all I think we grew 20 pounds of potatoes, you can see what I dug up yesterday, others have been dug before on a need to eat basis. The over size cukes were found in the potato patch from seeds that sprouted from last years crop. On the seat is also our largest potato. No not mini potatoes, just small ones.

The bee hive has been very busy with bees bringing in pollen like crazy. I found this Chinese Praying Mantis hoping to grab a meal. Once I put the camera close to her(it is a female) she was more interested in me, not the bees. I went out at dusk and she was still on the hive. See those razor sharp "teeth" on the middle of the femur on her fore legs these are called spiked forelegs raptorial legs. I found on once ripping apart a hummingbird with those raptorial legs.

Here is the Riggsbee Stone House Meg and I looked at on Saturday to possibly purchase. It was built in 1921 and is on The National Historic Registry. Rumor has it was a moon shiners house, the upstiars has hidden room for storing shine in. The price was a bit more than we could round up unless we sold our house first. The kitchen was in need of new cabinets. The first floor had a gravity toilet (cheap reproduction and claw-foot tub with an awful cheap fixture. The upstairs bathrooms were next to each other and on one end of the house the master bedroom was on the other end.

All this native quartz rock was everywhere on the 2 acres. A 16 inch perimeter rock wall needing minor repair, several walk under quartz arches (Karen!!), 2 defunct fountains and a defunct quartz rock pool. Mature trees like American Walnut, Maginolia Grandiflora, Pecan and Tulip Poplars. The gardens in the day must have been really something. 

The Night Blooming Cereus set a record the other night with 9 blooms I think you can see all of them in this photo.

My bees are non stop bringing in pollen! I looked in the top of the hive today and the new super is just full of bees drawing wax. Really looking forward to my next inspection next week. I have ordered a Small Hive Beetle Trap I talked to another beekeeper at the club dinner the other night and she has been using them with great results. Having a bit of shade around you hive makes beetles more of a problem. 

Oh and the garden. This morning I planted Rainbow Blend Carrots, Gourmet Lettuce Mix and Lacinato Kale in the cold frame. No it is not covered yet. Last night we visited the local nursery/farm at the bottom of the hill, I bought 4 different ferns and we were given a nice beauty berry bush.

The changing seasons

We have now had 90 days this year with 90 degree temps, it is getting real old. It might be over, the past 32 days we have had .13 inches of rain, it looks bad here. Summer gardening seems useless.... We have some rain on the way in the next 4 days of forecasts, lets hope it actually gets here.

Many of you might recall our getting a bunch of hellebores and a cyclamen last fall. Well the cyclamen has 2 blooms on it, the first in our garden. We suffered a good number of plant casualties this summer including Yuletide Camellia, 2 of the 3 discount camellias from Home Depot, 2 hellebores from Pineknot Farms and several other perennials.

Cyclamen hidden in our garden!

This Night Blooming Cereus from our porch two nights ago. It is a tropical catus Meg's daughter got in a yard sale for 15 cents over 12 years ago. We have had 2 other nights of blooming earlier in the season, this night we had 2 blooms. The blooms only last one night by the way. These photos were taken at 11 pm with my Canon G11 set to manual using the camera flash.

Pretty amazing this 8 inch very fragrant flower isn't it?

This is a Sleepy Orange caterpillar on Sicklepod. I found this last week while on a hike. The 10 x 10 patch of Sicklepod was pretty eaten up, in all there were at least 10-12 cats  there in various stages.