Random Surprises

Gardeners find joy in the little surprises that they find in their gardens.  It may be a particular leaf texture, color or shape, a flower that you forget until it blooms each year, a composition that clicks or any number of little gifts that our gardens give us to rejuvinate our spirits.  Maybe they just put a smile on our faces or make us exclaim, "how sweet." but these gifts of the garden are one of the reasons we do what we do.   Here are a few of the  happy surprises from my garden that made me happy to be outside again.

 

On February 18th I spotted my garden's first crocus of the season.  These were inherited with the garden and bloom in a little piece of lawn that remains unmowed until the foliage ripens.  The squirrels love to play with these for some reason.  They don't seem to dig the bulbs but they tear the flowers apart.

 Later I noticed this clump that keeps getting larger as I dig in new plants in the summer and throw the bulbs around.

 Recently we had a sunny day which was wonderful in itself but look at these yellow crocus basking in the winter sun.

 Yep, I've written about  snowdrops before but the large number of them always makes me smile.  After the flowers, he foliage makes beautiful grassy waves.  The foliage ripens fairly quickly and doesn't mind the other plants that grow over them in the summer. 

 The silly things are everywhere in my garden.  

Saxifrage all made up with her winter rouge looks quite pretty today.

 

 

Yes, I will remove the tag from my Camellia sasanqua 'Yuletide' soon!

 I'd purchased a Camellia s. 'Yuletide' before but it got a little more shade than they like and I thought it wouldn't bloom at all.  The happy surprise I found was that while it didn't bloom in December or January, it has buds on it and will looks like it'll be joining the camellia Japonicas in their bloom time this year. 

 

February 19  brought the first Camellia blooms.  Always the first japonica in my garden to bloom is this very old bush that came with the house and has been snapped in half by snow just about every time we get more than a few inches. In spite of that, it keeps living and blooming.

 Edgeworthia chrysantha made an appearance on the 19th as well.

 Euphorbia 'Ascot Rainbow' is my new favorite euphorbia.  It looks great all year long!

The last thing that made me feel fortunate to garden where I do was this rose.  Sure, it won't win any beauty contests but any rose blooming in February in  my neck of the woods is a rare occurance! 

 

I hope that even if your garden is still covered with snow, it's giving you happy surprises!   Spring is just around the corner!

 

Karma karma karma karma karma Camellia

You may remember my post about some Camellia sasanqua 'MonDel' that weren't looking their best.  When I came across this Camellia sasanqua 'Sho-No-Sake' in Windmill's garden looking beautiful even when covered with frost,  I thought it only fair to show how lovely these easy to grow (in our climate and acid soil)  gems really are.

In case you'd like a little music to go with the Camellia fest -

 

 

 

Later, while visiting another nursery, I came across these sasanquas.  The sasanquas bloom from late fall through winter, some overlap with the bloom time of the larger Camellia japonicas(late winter through spirng.)

Sorry I didn't get the varieties of all of these but, like the hummingbirds that seemed to be all over the place, I was flitting from flower to flower thinking each one was lovelier than the last.  Sorry about that, intoxicated by spring thoughts.  I promise to try to be more plant geeky in the future.

Those stamens are flirting with you.

These are a little more modest.

I had to include the C. sasanqua 'MonDel', 'Pink Yuletide' or (groan) 'Pink-A-Boo'

 

 

This sweetie is Camellia hiemalis 'Chansonette.'

A first sighting this season of  Camellia japonicas.  (If you live in an area where these don't grow, simply get a bolt of crepe paper, without unrolling it, trace a 3" circle on the paper.  Now put a staple in the middle of the circle and with scissors, cut along the line that you traced.  Once cut out, bring each circle of the crepe up toward what will be the center of the flower.  You can pull at the edges a little and crumple the crepe to get a more natural look.  Make many of these and paper clip them to whatever shrub you can see out of your kitchen window (the one over the sink that you look out of while doing the dishes.)  This will surely chase away the winter blues or at least get you placed in a room with fashonably padded walls where you'll be nice and warm in you special jacket. 

C. japonica 'Spring's Promise'   I love this one with that big boss of yellow stamens.  None of the japonicas in my garden or around town are blooming yet.  I'm thinking that these have been in a very protected area.

Loree (read about her camellia here)  and Louis recently posted about their first plant purchases of 2013. What was my first plant purchase of 2013?

  "Loving would be easy if your colors were like my dream, red gold and green, red gold and green."

Karma karma karma karma karma Camellia..."  (sasanqua 'Yuletide')