Fall Camellias & Puffballs

Today it is a perfect fall day, leaves falling and overcast. The overcast is due to Hurricane Sandy I think. Was checking the hellebores and found lots of masses of edible mushrooms Pear-shaped Puffball (Lycoperdon pyriforme) under the dying hickory tree in the hellebore garden. No I'm not going to eat them, though I am tempted. Went to get the camera and found two lovely camellias in bloom.

  Camellia sasanqua 'Pink Butterfly'  This is one of my all time favorite camellias, at Duke Gardens they have two of the near the pond they are 4 ft around and 12 ft tall. Planted in our garden last fall.

 Camellia sasanqua 'Pink Butterfly'

  Camellia sasanqua  'Moon Festival'

  Camellia sasanqua  'Moon Festival' with a Clouded Skipper butterfly!

 Camellia sasanqua  'Moon Festival' Planted in our garden last fall, we bought this in Wilmington last fall.

Pear-shaped Puffball (Lycoperdon pyriforme)

 Don't call me cross-eyed!! Here is Manny, he was helping me in the yard with the mushrooms.

 Manny is a Red Point or Flame Point  Siamese cat. When he is bad I call him Manfred. He loves getting on counter tops in the kitchen and scratches the glass doors while standing on his hind legs when he want out or in. Yes we have a pet door Manny, get with the program will you!

That's it for today. I'm going to early vote. And I'm going to be a greeter for the democrats. Please don't forget to vote no matter who you choose.

New Tea Garden, well almost

Yesterday Meg and I visited Camellia Forest Nursery and purchased 5 more camellias. The nursery has 200 different camellias in stock to sell and somewhere around 600 different camellias in all. Very impressive operation indeed.

I recently became interested in camellias for tea! So we picked out two different plants Camellia sinensis 'Korea' and Camellia sinensis var. sinensis 'Small Leaf Tea'. The Korean is considered very cold hardy up to zone 6 and Small Leaf Tea variety is widely cultivated in Japan.


Camellia sinensis Korea This is a medium leaved tea and the plant above is a year old plant. Yes we are starting small.

Below is Camellia sinensis Small Leaf Tea This is a bigger plant and it gets to about 6 ft tall. The fresh new leaves are picked as it grows. These also have small 1 -1 1/2 inch white flowers that are cute. I am known for my special teas so why not give this a try.


Camellia sasanqua 'Tsumaorigasa' a white flower with slightly pink outer edges we bought for the garden. I looked this one up on the web and no other US sources for it other than Camellia Forest Nursery. The other two camellias we bought were Camellia japonica 'April Dawn' and Camellia japonica 'La Peppermint'

So now we have 12 camellias, none very big yet. Many of you might ask how we have room for so many as they do require a lot of space. Our goal is to build a living privacy fence so when the leaves drop of in our woods we do have to look at the neighbors across the way. When I moved here you could walk all around the house and not see any neighbors houses. The 10 acres behind us was woods and is now a small animal hobby farm. We do enjoy the animals but also enjoy the privacy.

Our woods are oaks, poplars and maples and the soil is mostly clay. Not the best conditions for growing camellias as they'd rather be under pines in a more acid soil so we can only hope for the best. Our first 4 camellias have been planted 8 months now and have set buds for flower pretty good, so we are hoping these will do ok.

OK bet a lot of you have had enough camellias. Well here is an hellebore that is starting to bloom. We saw one like it in Duke Gardens last week doing the same thing it was labeled Helleborus argutifolius Corsican Hellebore. I got this plant from a good friend about a month ago.


Today was almost 70 degrees it seemed hot there for a while. We saw a Question Mark butterfly flying about and landing on the leaves and a Autumn Meadowhawk dragonfly over the pond.

Camellias Deep Pinks & Reds 10 Different Ones!

Hope all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We had all the fixing and trimmings and now have a fridge full of leftovers.

As promised the deep pinks and reds. The reds have a bit of difficultly reproducing on film so they might still look a bit pink. These are from last Sunday at Sara P Duke Gardens.



Camellia sasanqua 'Inhi-no-umi
Stunning camellia it was blooming like crazy and it was one of my favorites in Duke Gardens.



Camellia sasanqua 'William Lanier Hunt"

Camellia sasanqua 'Bonanza"
Lovely!

Camellia X 'Christmas Rose'
Another Camellia Forest introduction and listed as zone 8a, it looked very happy in Duke Gardens zone 7

Camellia japonica 'Spring's Promise'

Camellia sasanqua 'Sea At Sunset'
Funny name for a flower but beautifully formed anyway.

Camellia sasanqua 'Anne McCulloch Hill'
This beauty of a camellia was hidden away at Duke Gardens I had to walk off the path to see it good. This plant was 15 ft tall and the flowers every one looked different than the next. The flower below was a freshly opened one. This camellia is a Camellia Forest introduction they are a local Camellia specialized nursery that has 180 different camellias to choose from.


Camellia sasanqua 'Kanjiro'
This camellia we have planted below our screened porch! We were totally impressed that it was planted in Duke Gardens alone the main path and was the showiest camellia we saw on Sunday. The plant was 4-5 ft wide and about 7-8 ft tall and had hundreds of blooms.




Camellia japonica 'Lady Clare'
One of the more perfect looking flowers we saw.


Camellia sasanqua 'Sekiyo'

Camellias Pinks15 Different Ones!

More camellias from Sara P Duke Gardens on Sunday, these are the lighter pink ones and the darker pink to red ones I'll post after Thanksgiving.

Have a great and safe Thanksgiving everyone!


Camellia hiemalis 'Pink Goddess"


Camellia Oleifera 'Winter's Darling'
One cold hardy camellias, cold hardy to -23° C.


Camellia Oleifera 'Winter's Star'
Another cold hardy camellia down to -20° C.


Camellia X 'Winter's Joy'
Another cold hardy camellia down to -23° C.


Camellia X 'Dawn' above and below.
These were stunning and one of my favorites too.


Camellia sasanqua 'Pink Butterfly'
This is a very upright camellia, Duke Gardens has it growing next to the pond where it gets lots of visitors feeding the ducks. Another Camellia Forest Introduction


Camellia sasanqua 'Carolina Moon Mist'
If a recall correctly this camellia was in a sunnier location than most at the gardens and it was covered up in blooms.

Camellia sasanqua 'Moon Festival"
One word on this one HUGE Blooms, we might be adding this one to the garden here.


Camellia sasanqua "Pink Snow'
Wow!

Camellia sasanqua 'Chansonette'
Above and below.



Camellia sasanqua 'Cleopatra'
This was very showy and deep in the shade.


Camellia sasanqua 'Our Linda'



Camellia sasanqua 'Showa No Sake' or 'Glory of the Snow"

Camellia japonica 'Debutante'
This one is also blooming in our garden, I recognized it right away as Debutante. Meg and I were tickled to find this camellia in two locations at Duke Gardens and it was in the top 4 of our favorites from our visit there.


Camellia japonica 'October Affair'
Guess I messed up posting this one with the whites as you can see it is very pink.
Just lovely! Also a Camellia Forest introduction.




More deeper pinks and reds to come.

These images are copyrighted by Randy Emmitt and shall not be used unless permission or a license is granted.

Camellias White 10 Different Ones!

Yesterday Meg and I visited Sara P Duke Gardens a 55 acre sprawling garden inside of Durham, NC. If you have never visited your missing out. We walked around for 3+ hours and took photos of 37 different camellias in bloom of which 35 of those made fairly good to excellent photos. These camellias I would call November bloomers and I'm guessing there are at least another 60-80 different camellias not blooming yet.

We'll be going back in 3-4 weeks for another set of photos and be watching for the zillions of hellebores in the garden to start blooming as well. A big hug goes out to Meg for taking such good notes and being so patient with me.


Camellia japonica October Affair One thing about this one stunning and kind of stached in the garden, one has to look for this beauty.

Camellia sasanqua Setsugekka we found this plant in bloom in two different places in the garden. Huge white blooms likely my favorite white bloomer.



Camellia sasanqua Mine No Yuki Very showy and variable.


Camellia X Yoi Machi this one is a cross and has pink edges. Some resources I looked at called this an sasanqua.

Camellia japonica Elaine Lee
This was a good one too!

Camellia japonica Fairweather Favorite
Cold Tolerant how does this sound to you northerners!
Cold hardy to -26° C.

Camellia japonica Winter's Hope
This is a more cold tolerant camellia growing in zone 6-9




Camellia X Aston's Snow
Cold Tolerant how does this sound to you northerners!
Cold hardy to -26° C.

Camellia sasanqua Winter's Snowman
This one made a lovely display with lots of blooms.
Cold Tolerant to -23 C.

Camellia X 'Snow Flurry'
Another camellia being cold tolerant down to -23 C.

Stay tuned because I still have 15 different pink camellias and 10 deep pink camellias to post in the future! So far that is :)

These images are copyrighted by Randy Emmitt and shall not be used unless permission or a license is granted.