Summer Blooms and More: 10 Days

Mr. Cardinal

Nasturtiums are beautiful and edible.

The female towhee, well camouflaged

A baby bunny I didn't have the heart to scare out of the garden

This past week the gardenia exploded with blooms, so many that I don't feel guilty at all about cutting them and bringing them indoors. 

Bean flowers in their tiny perfection

I didn't know squash flowers were so lovely.

The new oakleaf hydrangea "Ellen Huff" seems happy near the foundation.

The first lily to bloom in the garden this year. 

Tropical Storm Andrea dumped 4.5 inches of rain. 

Wordless Wednesday: Red and Green

Japanese maple

Japanese plum yew and variegated ivy

Oakleaf hydrangea

Southern magnolia

Eastern prickly pear

In the Garden: The Last Things

The last woody plant to hold its leaves as the garden goes to sleep in December is the oakleaf hydrangea. I saw it in the late afternoon sunlight and wanted to write an ode to a leaf. 

The last shrubs to bloom in the garden are the camellias. In my yard they're the size of small trees. I believe the one below is the variety (appropriately named) "Yuletide." The flowers are fragrant, unlike those of most camellias.

The flowers have never clustered so thickly.

I don't know the name of the camellia below, but it blooms on and off throughout the winter. If it's cold, its blossoms freeze and turn brown, but new buds emerge and bloom. 

It has lovely rose-like blooms. 

I thank the unknown gardener who planted it.

A white camellia in the sasanqua family also blooms prolifically.

This is the camellia tree that the cardinals nested in last spring. 

Last but not least, here is some low-growing mistletoe I saw on a tree on the golf course last week. It's rare to see mistletoe growing at eye level, though I did get lucky one year in finding sprigs with berries growing low. 

Did anyone notice the difference between the first photos on this post and the last two? :) 

May: A Walk in the Garden

By mid-May, the leaves on the overstory oaks, hickories, sweetgums and poplars are fully grown. The garden looks green and lush from recent rains. The spring ephemerals have bloomed and gone to seed, and there's a lull before the summer perennials start blooming. Yet there's still a few plants in bloom, many of them native to the Southeast. One of my favorite shrubs stands out amidst all the green: Oakleaf hydrangea. It thrives in the dappled light of the understory.

 Hydrangea quercifolia

I obtained divisions of creeping phlox and penstemon last spring when volunteering doing plant maintenance at the UNC Botanical Gardens. I transplanted them in hot weather and wasn't sure they'd survive. I love it when plants once again prove my worries to be unfounded. 

Phlox stolonifera

I'm not sure what variety of penstemon this is. Do you know?

Evening primrose is a beautiful lemon color, perhaps my favorite yellow of all flowers. This volunteer surprised me during a walk through the garden. It is a growing under an ironwood sapling that I also "weeded" from the botanical garden. 

If you look closely, you can see pollen on the legs of the ant on this Oenothera fruticosa. 

I'm happy to see that Tiarella cordifolia is still blooming one month later. I find it difficult to capture the fairy-like charm of this little woodland perennial in photographs. 

The geraniums after five years have finally spread to make a charming edging to the walkway.

Geranium sanguineum 'Max Frei'

Here is a close-up of a mystery azalea that charms simply because it blooms long after other the flowers of other azaleas are a memory. 

Bumblebees spend the day crawling on the blooms of Magic Carpet spirea.

Spiraea bumalda 'Magic Carpet'

I raved about Confederate star jasmine in my post yesterday. 

Trachelospermum jasminoides