What's happening in your garden?

[Manalto]

That 'Islander' dahlia is a beauty, sorry it didn't perform for you. It was probably either a bad tuber or a critter (usually a squirrel) got it. In either case, there's no point in digging.

[Gothichome]

Ya, I decided to leave it in the ground, it might come to life in the springbok that would be a long shot.

[Gothichome]

First day of January, I still have roses flowering, not pretty roses but flowers just the same.

[Manalto]

...not pretty roses...

Come now, who ever heard of ugly roses?

[Gothichome]

James, thy are small rose buds struggling to open. Our first winter of ownership we had roses up to Christmas. First time into January. It has been a really mild fall and start to winter for us. If it happen next year I will think about getting a few orange or banana trees planted.

[Manalto]

If it happens next year I will think about getting a few orange or banana trees planted.

Canadian mangoes... mmmmm...

Here on the Gulf Coast, temperature swings can be extreme at this time of year. It can reach 80 during the day and may plunge into the 20s at night. I'm surprised at how resilient some of the plants are here, particularly the camellias, which are in bloom now. I was lucky to inherit a wonderful assortment of mature camellias, some of them which recovered when I removed the weed trees that had crowded and overwhelmed them.

This week, I discovered one I hadn't seen before, a small plant (about 4') with soft pink, formal double blooms. Here's one of them, a wee bit past its prime:



Its location at the base of another camellia causes me to wonder if it's a seedling. If so, it's a winner.

[Gothichome]

James, you always seem to have new plant discoveries, the seed may have laid dormant for a couple of years and finally came to life once you straightened out the over growth. You mention the plant is 4 ft but suspect you meant 4 inches. It is nice to have some fresh colour in the gardens in the winter.
My roses finally gave up the effort, a cold snap has arrived, a bit of real winter. I just might hold off ordering my banana and orange trees.

[Manalto]

You mention the plant is 4 ft but suspect you meant 4 inches.

No, 4 feet. Most of the camellias on this property are 10 feet tall or more; for a slow-growing plant like this, one can assume they're at least 30 years old, probably much older. So, by "seedling" I meant an offspring of one of the established shrubs (as opposed to a plant bought at a nursery), not a young sprout.

Today I got my answer. I plunged into the tangle to remove a volunteer wisteria (A pox on that plant!) and saw that the pink camellia (it's actually about 5' tall) had resprouted from an established plant that was cut off at ground level. Odd, because I wouldn't have intentionally cut down a camellia, and its foliage is easy to identify. Oops. I'm glad it's back though because it's a beauty.

[Manalto]

Just in case anybody might be feeling jealous of our mild winters down here on the Gulf Coast, realize that it's not all mint juleps on the veranda. This past weekend we got a cold wave and temperatures plummeted down into the mid-20s. Perhaps the most dramatic victims of the cold snap were the firespike, turning this...



...into this nasty mess:



Firespike is considered a dieback perennial, though, so it should recover in the spring.

The elephant ears suffered a similar fate, although they didn't go so totally black. They, too, should bounce back in a month or so. The cold is beneficial because it keeps them from running rampant.

[Gothichome]

James, you poor soul, cold! Well let me tell you about cold. It was a cold and stormy night the wind was blowing straight off the North Pole………..


We’ve been unusually cold this January, the weather people tell us the last time January was this cold was 2014. This actually is a good thing for us, the long cold takes the frost down deeper and kills a lot of ground burrowing bugs and mosquito eggs. So this summer hopefully we won’t have such a Japanese beetle and mosquito problem this summer.