Winter’s Star Camellia
It’s that time of year again, when my one and only camellia bush blooms. When I lived further north, I always wanted a camellia, but they don’t take kindly to really cold winters, so that killed that idea (just like it would have killed the bush, ha, ha!).
When I got further south and we moved to the farm, one of the first things I planted was this Camellia ‘Winter’s Star’ (camellia oleifera). It’s a little hardier, and seems to be doing well here. About a week ago it was in bud.
It didn’t take long until the buds opened up.
There are bud and blooms all over the bush.
This picture doesn’t really do it justice. The sun was a little too bright shining off the blooms, so you’ll just have to take my word for it that it’s a beautiful bush.
At any rate, I sure like it!
Of Rainbows And Wildflowers
It was relatively cool early one morning this week, so I took a walk down in the bottom pasture to see what kind of wildflowers were blooming.
The field is full of Meadow Rue and Joe Pye Weed. It makes a striking contrast of whites and rosy-pink, with a little green mixed in from the underlying leaves and stems.
There are also yellow flowers blooming. I’m not sure what they are, but they sure do shine in the shadows.
There are other splashes of yellow mixed in with the taller plants, with tall goldenrods here and there.
A lot of the bottom pasture is a little boggy, as spring water oozes out of the hillside. This makes a perfect environment for Cardinal Flowers (Lobelia cardinalis).
I love these plants, and so do the hummingbirds. It’s kind of hard to get a good picture though, as the camera doesn’t want to lock in on the red and the edges can be kind of blurred.
Around the outer edges of the pasture, there are patches of Jewel Weed (Impatiens capensis).
The juice from this plant is supposed to be a good rememdy for poison ivy, but I’ve never tried it.
A whole bunch of these yellow flowers grow on a bank near our pond.
In fact, I used them as a background for a picture of Ellie in her 2007 calendar.
There are also morning glories growing on a hillside near the pond.
Near the mailbox, there are some wild blue morning glories.
Of course the butterflies enjoy morning glories, and I usually see a few near them, like this Pearl Crescent Butterfly.
Then yesterday evening when The Farmer came home, he told me to come outside, because he saw a rainbow as he was driving home.
While I was outside with my camera, I took another picture of all the Meadow Rue and Joe Pye Weed in the bottom pasture, because the evening light gave it a different coloration.
I thought the colors were more vibrant and the white showed up better. You can also see some purple Ironweed (Vernonia altissima) in the lower lefthand corner.
It’s a lot of fun looking around the farm for wildflowers!
Friday’s Farm Flowers
Here we are at the end of another week, and I decided it’s been a while since I put up some pictures of the flowers blooming around here. So here we go:
First a couple of Daylilies. . .
At the bottom of the steps there’s some Leucanthemum x superbum ‘Aglaia’ – otherwise known as Fringed Shasta Daisies.
At the corner of the porch, I have a Hosta ‘Blue Angel’ planted. It’s supposed to get up to 70 inches wide and 32 inches tall, but it hasn’t quite made it there yet.
Considering it was just a tiny thing when I planted it, however, it’s done pretty well. Right now it’s about 60 inches wide, and 24 inches tall. The leaves have a bluish cast to them, and get really big.
Here’s a closeup picture of the blooms:
All kinds of little bees and bugs and even hummingbirds like these flowers.
The butterfly bushes also get a lot of traffic from bugs and butterflies and hummingbirds. This bug has orange eyes to match it’s orange and black body.
While it’s an interesting looking bug, butterfly bushes are supposed to have, well. . . butterflies!
In the summer, all kinds of things are blooming, but that’s enough pictures for one post!
Paul’s Himalayan Musk Rambler Rose
I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned the rambling rose I planted a few years back. It’s blooming now, and looks pretty neat. (At least I think it does, but I admittedly could be a bit biased.)
Here’s a closeup of the roses against the tree trunk.
And here’s a few of them that are waaaaaaaaay up in the tree!
Every year it rambles a little further up the tree. Guess that’s why they call it a rambler rose!
In The Flower Patch
This time of year there are lots of things in bloom. There are some pretty Bearded Iris plants in a flowerbed in the front yard. They were planted before we ever moved here.
In one of the flower beds in front of the house, there are still azaleas blooming. In the same flowerbed, I have some Cranesbill. I have a couple of different varieites. One is a pale pink with darker pink stamens.
Geranium Biokovo (Cranesbill)
The flowers are so delicate, it kind of gets lost as a single specimen. I think it would be much prettier if there were masses of the same plant with flowers blooming all at once.
I like purple flowers and I think pink and purple look good together. so nearby is some Blue Sage that is dark purple.
Salvia nemorosa ‘Caradonna’
There are also several Coral Bell plants to provide more pink color.
Coral Bells (Heuchera sanguinea)
There are even some daylilies starting to bloom now.
Daylily ‘Stella d’Oro’
I like the combination of roses with clematis growing through them. I took this picture one evening.
White Iceberg Rose with Clematis
We’ve got patches of flowers all over the place these days!