2019 Gardening at Holly Grove

Monday 26 November 2018



It is the time I have chosen to start the year’s report---the ginko is in full color. Though I think not as good as we have had in the past. We just came back from Nashville where we spent Thanksgiving. There was lots of color along the highways---mostly yellows and some orange. Even here there is some color despite the Chinese tallow trees having been frosted and their leaves all turned to brown.



I follow Kor Quant’s blog on Ginkos and in early November there were more pictures of the fall color.

Gardenista did a spot on ginkos last week. They noted the first in the US came from William Hamilton of Philadelphia when he ordered 3 after a grand tour of European gardens in the 1780’s. He planted 2 of the trees on his 300 acre estate and gave 1 to his friend, naturalist William Bartram which is the only one that has survived into the 21^st century. It can be visited at his estate in Philadelphia. I saw their picture. The diameter did not look nearly as large as ours which is still the biggest one I have found in the US. I should make a November trip to measure some. Next year?



Gardenista also notes ginkos come from only 2 wild areas in central China. They will grow in US zones 3-9. Like full sun; have no problems with insects and disease and will survive as street trees. There is only one species but some cultivars: Kew from England and Autumn Gold, a cultivar introduced in 1955 by the California Saratoga Horticultural Foundation.



My tree I plant last winter is not growing but has survived. Leaves already gone.



Several camellias are now in bloom---the sasanquas and several japonicas. ‘Garden & Gun’ has an article in its December/January issue about Sidney Frazier, the vice president of horticulture at Middleton Place where he started working at age 17 in 1974. One of the first four camellias rooted there in 1786, a gift from the French botanist André Michaux, survives. They call it the Queen or Reine des Fleurs. It is red with a splash of white and over 200 years old.



I also bought 2 trees (back in July at Peckerwood) @$15: Quercus polymorpha, Mexican white oak, (found from Val Verde Co. in W. TX south into Mexico and Guatamala), and quercus glauca, or Japanese blue oak, native to E. Asia, mostly China. . The first an evergreen oak and the second a multi-trunked smooth leaved oak. Both grow to 60’ but the Japanese oak is said to be deer food---bad. I have just put them out in the north lawn with plenty of space. Both with cages to protect from the deer.



Wednesday 27 November



A frost this morning, 30° on the rear gallery. There was frost on the roofs and some of the fields.



I am planting and cleaning out some tree bases.



There are 3 George Tabors that I got at the Southern Garden History Society meeting in Jacksonville, FL earlier this year. They were produced by George Tabor at his nursery and were a gift. Glen St. Mary Nursery, established 1882, is run by George IV now. George III is age 80. Planted near a live oak in the north lawn.



I put Rev. John Bennett that I purchased at Middleton last summer in the south lawn.

Magnolia was founded in 1676. After the Civil War, Rev. John Grimké Drayton with the help of a former slave, Adam Bennett, as garden superintendent, improved the gardens and opened them to the public. Adam’s son, John Bennett also became superintendent and the camellia named for him was probably an old garden seedling, registered in 1840. 2 other camellias were named for African workers there: Tina Gilliard and Willie Leach. The Bennett camellia is salmon pink, semi-double with veined petals, medium size, mid to late season, upright loose growth.



Also planted in the upper south lawn border is Ruby, a Southern Living Collection called October Magic®, developed in Fairhope Alabama. It is a small Christmas red, fully double, semi-dwarf at 5’x5’. It has already bloomed this year and the color reminds me of Yuletide.



White by the Gate, one recommended in Wilmington by Henry Rehder which I have lost before went into the north lawn in the edge of the ivy bed. It is of medium size, 10’x6’-8’. It was created by Hyman’s Nursery in Lafayette Louisiana in the years following WWII and first listed in 1956. This one I bought at Camellia Forest and potted up for a year before putting it in the garden.



I also put a new Woodville Red in the north lawn. This one I purchased at the camellia event put on at Allendale by the Lewis’. This peony form, fully double, medium red, mid-season, 10’x6’-10’, came to Woodville Mississippi from Europe in 1820 according to the web site I was reading. It is supposed to have been planted by a Mrs. White.



From Camellia Forest which I have potted up from a year ago I planted 3:



Black Tie, deep red, formal double, open upright, mid-season, 8-12’x6-8’. 1^st flowered about 1968 in Albany Georgia by Spencer C. Walden, Jr. and propagated by Beard Nursery and Wilkes Nursery of Moultrie Georgia. Planted in south lawn.



Adeyake, current red with yellow anthers, small bloom, early, mid-season, dense, upright. A chance seedling from Chapel Hill, Dr. Clifford Parks, 1^st bloom 1968, registered 1982.

Planted to right front of house.



Sadaharu Oh, small-medium white edged red, single to semi-double, midseason, upright. A seedling of Tama-no-ura, named in honor of the Japanese baseball hero known as the Babe Ruth of Japan. Introduced by Bobby Green of Green Nursery, Fairhope Alabama in 2012. Planted to right front of house.



I bought 3 from the Baton Rouge Camellia Society last February:



Happy Memories. I cannot find anything about it. Planted in south lawn.



Herme, semi-double, dark salmon, irregular bordered with white, streaked with darker pink, mid-season, 6-8’x6-8’. This originated in Japan in 1859 as Kikarugenji (brilliant genji). It came to the US in 1875 and was called Jordan’s Pride. The French called it Souvenir d’Henri Gichard in the early 1900’s. The Germans called it Herme.



CM Wilson, pink with white edge, petaloids, large bloom, early to mid-season, compact, slightly pendulous. It is a sport of Elegans and 1^st bloomed 1936 originating with Mrs. Ada Wilson of Pensacola Florida.



While looking up these on the computer I chanced on the Tidewater Camellia Club of Wilmington website. They noted they have names of 69 camellias developed in the Cape Fear and have found 15 of these.



There was an old article about Pleasant Oak Plantation on the Cape Fear belonging to the Bellamy’s being open with its azaleas and camellias back in the 1950’s. What has happened to the garden?



I also took some notes on care:

Fertilize in April with 16-4-8 and in July with 4-12-8 or 4-8-12. Water q. 2 weeks if no rain. Take cuttings to root May-August.



Thursday 29 November



After frost yesterday it is quite warm today. Finished planting the camellias except one from Alabama. It is small. May pot it up for another year. Some of the small earlier planted camellias are still small. I put pine straw around the new plantings and noticed deer already nibbling. And the woodpecker is back in the rear of the annex. What to do about both. Need to buy a BB gun and probably could get the bird---scare off the deer?



The farfugium at the front walk is blooming nicely but not the spotted one near the patio.

The phisostegia in the front bed behind the camellia is still nicely in bloom.



Cut nandina berries and holly for decorating in NOLA today.



Friday 30 November



A good rain this morning and 70’s today. Planted the Passionate Blush Gaura (also called wand flower) I bought at Abide-a-While this past summer. It is draught tolerant. That is why I bought it. I planted it near the south upper steps and cleaned out the steps some.



Tuesday 11 December

Back from Wilmington. Muddy from lots of rain. Hard frost last night, 27º. Some more camellias had opened and a couple of bushes covered but, of course, burned last night. The good fall color is beginning to fade. The ginko leaves have fallen. Lots of bulbs up but no blooms yet.



Put the shreadings from the downed tree in ILM as mulch on some camellias. Planted the lirope from ILM under a north lawn oak. The hosta from the Lazarus to the S. drive border. Transferred from white bed an autumn clematis to the cemetery. Planted the live oak from Rosedown of a year ago in the space in the allée on the north side at the cemetery area. I won’t be around for this one to get very large but someone else can enjoy.



Put out the bamboo from ILM around some of the camellias to deter deer. Does it help?



Thursday 13 December



I planted the 4^th George Tabor in the S. drive border. Now the rain has started again.



Saturday 29 December



Rain again. The lake is full. Lots of rain plus wind a couple days ago.



We have been in England for about a week. The stores in London all with planted flower boxes, hanging baskets outside pubs. The countryside to Cambridge with newly planted fields of ? and some pasture and some plowed fields. Weather cold and rainy but above freezing.



Here we have a lot more narcissus and camellias. Violas on steps are dong well. The deer ate the strawberries on the patio. And they are after my new camellias. Maybe they should be put out in early spring. The fall lettuces, etc are overrun with clover. The peas continue to grow. No blooms. The pot greens not doing particularly well. I am looking at seed catalogues.



Monday 31 December



Another big rain today and the ground is all mushy.



I did rake grass clippings and finished covering the cardboard in the bed west of the potager.



Cleaning the drive bed and the leaves in the gutter produced some rooted purple lantana which I put in the beds at the head of the azaleas in the front lawn. I also found a bulb on the top of the ground, an amaryllis I think and also put this in the azalea bed.



I also uncovered the Alstroemeria from Alabama in the bed under the vitex. I have been meaning to move them but they seem to be thriving under the vitex and indigo so maybe I will leave them. Alstroemeria are best known as the florist’s Peruvian lilies and they come from the high Andes. These do not do well in the South but their lowland cousin from Brazil, the parrot lily (Alstroemeria psittacina), prospers mightily according to Ogden.



I am looking out the annex north window at a field of blooming narcissus. These are holdovers from probably the Williamsons who I credit with most of the garden plants, but maybe older. What is their name? I go to Ogden. He notes paperwhites begin with September rains and flower from late November to February. These north of annex flowers have small yellow cups which fits with a picture from Ogden of ‘White Pearl.’

He calls this an heirloom Tazetta along with Avalanche. The narcissus in the white bed which I dug from an abandoned lot in Gantt Alabama have a white cup and are blooming as well.



The weather at this time last year had temperatures below 20 and one day I think never was above freezing.



I did put some chicken wire around camellias in the south lawn. The new oaks in the north lawn had their covers removed by the deer and partially eaten. Even eating on one of the azaleas. I have up potted the Alabama camellia to grow it further before planting out.



Friday 4 January



Rained all day yesterday. I was not off the porch. Cold today in 40’s but not raining!! At last. Picked a salad but not much to pick. I noticed some favas coming up and a bloom on the peas and small heads on the broccoli. I did remove all the Christmas wreaths, etc. yesterday.



Time to get my seed order in order while I will be inside to keep warm.



Wednesday 16 January



Picked up highway trash as is usual on Wednesday when we are here. The weather has remained without a hard frost so peas are in full bloom in the potager but something is eating the fava beans. The camellias and narcissi are doing well with blooms. The deer have continued to be bad with the young camellias.



I have done the burn pile near the potager and this has burned through the middle of the log so I can get the mower through I think. Have cut tree branches of the nearby oak and am starting another pile there to continue to burn the logs.



Am raking the pine straw for mulch and cover for some more tender plants as a hard freeze is predicted this coming Monday.



Wednesday 23 January



Picked up on the highway this am before rain. I have done little in the garden due to the weather. I did today order seeds from Pinetree and Southern Exposure Seed Exchange for the potager. I am ever hopeful.



Friday 1 February



Just back from New Orleans and noted there that the soulangeana are in bloom and early leaves are on the trees on I-10.



We fortunately did not get a bad freeze this past week when a lot of the nation experienced the coldest weather in 20-30 years.



I am trying to get back out and doing some stuff. Weeding, mulching, moving some plants.



Just got my seeds from Pinetree and Southern Exposure.



An article in Country Roads tells of azaleas in Lafayette with their Azalea Trail which began in the 1930’s. They have a Formosa variety they call The General Lafayette. They are trying to revive the trail since 2015. The inventor of the encore azalea, Buddy Lee is from Independence LA. The article also mentions that the Azalea Parade in Wilmington will run for the 72^nd time this April 6. We are planning to go to Houston to see their azaleas this year. Maybe we can include Lafayette.



Saturday 2 February



Went to Bruce Lewis’ this morning, another grafting workshop. Mine didn’t work last year and I paid no attention. I came to buy. Larry Bates Nursery from Forest Hill LA, near Alexandria was there again and with big plants for good prices. 3 gal for $30. I got another Woodville Red (not as large but bigger than last year’s) for $25. I wanted some old ones but they didn’t seem to have any. I got a Laura Walker which I learned when I got home was 1956 from Mrs. L Walker, Marshallville GA. And a pretty red labeled Valleri. I could find a Valerie when I got home which looked similar. It is a pretty single red. Planted them today in big holes and a little above grade (not too deep!). I noted that Bruce had planted a lot along his entrance drive in the woods. The beds around his house really need a weeding as they did last year. We saw several people there but did not stay for lunch.



Warm today, 70’s. Cutting some camellias that made it through the brief freeze. And cut one from Valleri.



Sunday 3 February



Planted seed of shishito, sun gold and Cherokee purple tomatoes.



Cut out the crimson candles camellia which is quite tall but no breath. Has nice single deep pink to red blooms. The deer have none the less rubbed the trunk! They seem to have an affinity to camellias.



Monday 4 February



Warm but cloudy. No frosts predicted for the next 10 days. I decided to put peas in the ground: a super sugar snap to grow tall, left over seed of sugar snap (The peas planted last fall have not been killed and have many blooms but I have yet to see a pea.), tall telephone to come in late and try Wando shelling pea, sounds good in the seed catalogue.



I had to weed the many clovers (which I gave to the cows), still did not till. The peas can outgrow the weeds that will come up but I think maybe the small stuff may need to be spaded. I am trying to weed some of the stuff I planted last fall to see if I can get some harvest.



The pear trees are in bloom.



Saturday 9 February



It’s cold this morning (40 or so), a significant change. Front came through last evening as we had drinks on the gallery. The last several days have been warm and I have been out in the ‘garden,’ mostly in the potager weeding and also raking pine straw for the beds around the well house.



Yesterday was a visit to Clegg’s in Baton Rouge. Iris in bloom in BR as well as soulangeana. I thought the landscape around the Sanova Dermatology (the reason we went to BR) nice. They had copper boxes embedded along the wall filled with stones and growing horsetail---a nice display.



At Clegg’s I looked for more broccoli, collards etc. but they are gone and tomatoes are out. I did find two nice swiss chard to pot and place in my hot bed for color and to eat. I also bought some red potatoes which I planted yesterday afternoon.



Then to look for trees. No camellia variety excited. I did buy a common persimmon, Diospyros virginiana. Odenwald notes red to yellow leaves falling to expose yellow orange fruit that must be frosted to eat. The label noted I need another one to fruit. Duh. I will need to return to get another. Not sure where to put. Maybe in the south lawn for show and as it needs little as a requirement. It grows wild on fence rows---maybe put them on the west fence line and will not need a deer protector.



I also bought a fig. I have planned to establish a collection of figs after reading an article in the Wrightsville Beach magazine. I bought a Celeste said to be a Southern favorite, small, pear-shaped, purple-brown skin and very light pink pulp. Deliciously sweet and also called honey or sugar figs. I have a LSU cultivar that I am not particularly fond of that I rooted from one I had in Alabama. It froze back last year. I have some others that are not growing particularly well. I am not sure what they are, maybe brown turkey or black mission. I rooted them but do not know the name. The brown turkey has five lobed leaves as opposed to three for the others. I should look. I want to get the other 6 listed ones: Brown Turkey (origins early 1700’s when it was first introduced to England, not as sweet, two crops); Calimyrna (Turkish fig, golden skin with pinkish flesh with a distinctive nutty flavor); black mission (perhaps most esteemed, originated from a tree in the Balearic Islands off the coast of Spain, purple-black skin and light strawberry pulp, two crops); Kadota (common green fig grown in California, believed to be thousands of years old, Pliny the Elder is said to have commended this variety); Marseille (Thomas Jefferson’s favorite, honey sweet creamy flesh and a tart green outer skin). Where to plant to get best results?



I also bought two citrus: Owari Satsuma and a Meyer improved lemon.



I love the Meyer lemons and it tolerates much lower temperatures than a true lemon according to my citrus book by Martin Page. The label says hardy to 30º. I will keep it in a pot. I put it into the blue pot I have. Do not need to pot up for a couple years according to the label. It is actually a hybrid between a lemon and a mandarin or an orange. It was first found growing as a pot plant near Beijing, China, in 1908 by Frank Meyer, a plant collector for the US Department of Agriculture. The original was a popular backyard citrus because it could be grown from cuttings but in the 1940’s it was discovered that it was a symptomless carrier of citrus tristeza virus (CTV).  Trees were destroyed. In the 1950’s California-based Four Winds Growers discovered a virus-free clone, released to the market as ‘Improved Meyer’ in the 1970’s. The fruit is easily damaged and therefore not grown commercially.



I planted out a potted Owari recently that I think has root rot and therefore will not survive. I put this south of the well house to protect it. I think I will put the new plant there when the other dies. Probably should put some drainage in the hole and

/or plant a little high.



The Satsuma received its common name in 1898 when General Van Valkenberg, the American ambassador to Japan, imported some plants into the United States; his wife named the trees after Satsuma Prefecture in western Japan. Satsumas (Satsuma Mandarin, Citrus unshiu) has been grown in Japan for several hundred years where it is well adapted to Japan’s cold climate. The first Satsuma was probably a seedling from a Chinese mandarin. They are the most cold tolerant of all citrus. They have been known to survive temperatures as low as –11 C. The label also says 30º.



Saturday 9 February



2 cold days so little outside work.  Soulangeana in bloom. Yellow jonquils are blooming. The red devon dafs are good this year.



Cut lots of camellias for dinner party tonight; pear branches for the center table. The forced narcissus and the amaryllis (gifts from Kelly Ralls) are pretty much gone. Need to plant out for the narcissus and in another pot for the amaryllis.



My seedlings are beginning to come up.



Notice that some of the citrus are beginning to bloom on the patio.



Spent some time today at the pocket park in Woodville discussing planting the park with Polly.



Monday 18 February



Cold today, 50’s; not the 83 in NOLA yesterday.



We are just back from a week in ILM and a weekend in NOLA for Krew de Vieux.



Some limbs down from last weeks rain.



In potager I picked a mess of edible podded peas planted last fall.



Cut a lot of camellias for decoration for lunch today---entertaining our acquaintance from Istanbul, Musa.  Larry had some huge camellia blooms in ILM---Tomorrow. I looked mine up, Camellia Forest 2011. It has deer damage and no bloom this year. I need to try putting chicken wire on the rest of my small camellias to get them going.



On the drive I picked some yellow daisy wildflowers which bloom nicely at this early spring time. I like a name and usually find Florida Wildflowers ok but this time found in the book, Weeds of the South. The plant is Cressleaf Groundsel, Senecio glabellus, aka Butterweed, ragwort, squawweed. The reference does not give bloom time which would be helpful with identification. It is native to all over the south and lower Midwest.



The seventeen sisters are in bloom north of the drive but not nearer the house.



Tuesday 19 February



Still chilly, too much so to be outside. Fingers cold picking a salad. I did also picked pot greens. Peas are coming up. No potatoes yet.



Citrus nearly all have blooms, also the plum which is all white. The pear blooms gone and leaves out. The bananas are trying to send out leaves. Have the peppers and tomatoes up. Probably pot up before setting out. I looked at Dalton’s yesterday, no winter plants, just the summer ones.



The narcissus north of house no longer with blooms but the ones on the cross drive and the farm drive are at peak. More dafs coming.



Repotted the amaryllis from Kelly to a permanent pot. Bloom dead but no leaves yet.



The Alabama camellia that I did not plant out has bloomed. It is an RL Wheeler, 1949. A product of Wheeler’s Central Georgia Nurseries. It won both the Margarete Hertrich Award and the William E. Woodroof Hall of Fame Award in 1978. Macoboy says it is good for a container. Maybe I shall.



I have an article on the Live Oak Society in Wilmington’s Salt magazine: founded in 1934. The president is the largest and was Locke Breaux who succumbed to the ravages of water and air pollution in 1968. The present one is the Seven Sisters Oak with a 38 foot waistline, thought to be 1,200 years old. Minimum girth for inclusion is 8’. 8-16’ are junior members. The Centenarians must measure 16’.  The vice presidents measure 31, 27, 29, and 28 feet. Louisiana has the most registered members and four of the five officers are in Louisiana. Wilmington’s Airlie Oak (21’) is the NC state champion but is not a member of the society. There are 8,680 members. Last fall I measured three of our trees and registered them:

Stewart Oak                             20’11”---119’ spread

            Front lawn

Cage Oak                                17’---117’ spread

            North of house

Jones Oak                                15’---110’ spread

            N. fence line



Friday 22 February



To NOLA last night. The leaves are coming out on the trees. It was 20º warmer yesterday afternoon in NOLA than here at HG. Warm here today. But still rainy.



This morning I went to Belle Chasse in Plaquemine Parish, first to Star Nursery but they only sell wholesale; then to Becnel who do sell retail. Bought 2 figs, Kadota, and Brown Turkey @ $25 and Kaffir Lime ($30) and Persian Lime ($24); no tax so cheaper than in BR but I did have to drive down, only 20 miles south of NOLA but about an hour each way.



Page says that the Persian lime is best for a cool climate. Also called Tahiti and Page, Citrus latifolia. It will fruit throughout the year. Long but obscure history. The plant probably originated in Southeast Asia and found its way to Europe via Persia. The first plants to reach the US originated from the island of Tahiti. The fruit turn yellow when fully ripe. The trees are bigger than those of the West Indian lime (Citrus aurantifolia) and the fruit are larger. The West Indian lime is also the Key lime. The Key lime needs much higher temperatures than the Persian lime.



Citrus hystrix, Makrut lime (Thailand), Thai lime or Kaffir lime is widely grown in Thailand where its leaves flavour a range of Thai dishes. The mature fruit are knobby and inedible. This plant also needs more heat to grow well.



I will leave the citrus in the pots for another year before I pot up, and I must be prepared to move in the winter for freezing temperatures.



I also planted arugula, cimmaron  and bughatti lettuce in a pot. Trying something new.



Raining hard now.



Got online to look for figs. Can’t find the Calimyrna but I did find a Black Mission and a Marseille at Burpee @ 19.95, free shipping but the computer lost connection in the rain. But I later got it done.



Saturday 23 February



Warm but rain. I did get some of the patio hedge clipped and I repotted the sun gold tomatoes and fertilized.



Sunday 24 February



Cooler but sunny. Finished the hedge, planted the narcissi from Kelly in white bed and moved lirope to tree in north lawn. Seeded nasturtium and basil.



Wednesday 27 February



Mostly sunny and warm today but sloppy wet. I am putting chicken wire around camellias to try to keep deer at bay with the smaller ones. The bamboo sticks don’t work.

Cutting camellias for house. I cut a pink perfection from Alabama but the blooms are miniature.



Yesterday moved stones and gravel to driveway. Also some physostegia and more Louisiana iris to bog garden.



I also took the chainsaw out to cut up some of the down limbs. Some of them have been there since last summer. Lots of limbs remain to be picked up before mowing. If it weren’t so wet would mow the highway. It is the most in need---and I need to mow the hay field before it gets going. The old tall grass from last year is there.



As I am out in the yard find this and that. The hoop petticoats are in bloom. The helleoborus is in bloom for the first time. Some white iris buds. The redbud is in full. The spirea and forsythia has bloom but neither very good. The spirea is in too shady a site. The coral bells are starting.



I have been going around to make some daffodil notes for next year.



Sunday 3 March



Cold and rainy day. Do not want to go out. Glad I moved the citrus and ferns inside yesterday. Three days of freezing weather predicted. What will happen with all the bloom?



Spent the last three days garden touring. First the Azalea Trail in Lafayette. They have started to revive it. It needs work. And their azaleas are not out yet. They did seem to have several large live oaks around town. We then went to Houston for the 84^th Azalea Trail. The head gardener at Bayou Bend gave a talk on their azaleas last year at the Southern History Society meeting and we decided to take it on. Very expensive, very nice homes with over the top flower arrangements and most with grand gardens to boot. The Bayou Bend property is a museum and has formal gardens and they are immaculately kept. And they are really azalea gardens with camellias. One private residence, formerly the home of Oscar and Lynn Wyatt and Senator Lloyd Benson also had a fantastic garden---and seven full time gardeners we were told. Saw 2 camellia bushes there that I wish to get: a white with pink edge, Margaret Davis and a formal double white with a slight curve to the petal edges, Sea Foam. They had some nice Royal Velvet. I do have one of those, if not eaten by the deer. I was inspired to do better with up-keep but here I am this afternoon staying inside.



Since coming back the forsythia have much improved and the Carolina jasmine. The Redbuds are nice and the snow flakes are still good. Many Camellia blooms still. They dafs are beginning to go. Saw 2 white iris in bloom last evening with drinks on the front gallery. No sitting on gallery this week.



The weather being cold I went online and bought plants. I found the Sea Foam (introduced by John Weisner of Fernandina Beach Florida, 1959) but the Margaret Davis was not available. I also ordered Rosea Plena (France <1829, from an old plant at Magnolia Gardens, John’s Island SC) and Prince Eugene Napolean (since 1859, introduced by Belgian horticulturist de Costa). About $30 each with shipping.



Tuesday 5 March, Mardi Gras



27º this morning. No frost but ice on the water in the potager. Lots of things wilted: the cannas, the indigo, the iris blooms broken stems, potatoes that were just coming up, the coral bells. One more very cold morning to go.



Looking at azaleas. I want to increase my collection of Indicas. Native to Japan, to Holland in 1680 and to America in the 18^th century from one source. Another notes they are slightly hardier offshoots of Belgian hybrids developed by Rev. John Drayton in the 1840’s at Magnolia and expanded by PJ Berckman at Fruitland Nursery in Augusta GA in the 1850’s with lots of cultivars. They are not as popular today and except for a few varieties are hard to find. There are still a lot of cultivars out there and I shall endeavor to increase my varieties. People today are buying Encore. As Bart Brechter of Bayou Bend said, we may loose some of the older ones.



I watered and fertilized my orchids today. The one from the Louisiana Gardeners has two blooms and the one given to Connie from Marsha has a bloom stalk. Outside last summer in the humid air and inside this winter in a north window with water standing under them and weekly or so watering with warm water seems to be working.



Two plants I have that I don’t see names for I ran into: Curry leaves, Murraya koenigii, and mountain mint (from Dorothy Bonitz), Pycnanthemum muticans.



Out trying to put more chicken wire around the camellias.



Sunday 10 March



Warm but rainy still. It was warm yesterday and I did a fair amount in the garden. I looked at all the burned stuff: the new growth on the George Tabors, the coral bells, the new growth on the boxwood shows a soft brown all across the top of the hedge, the new growth on the bananas, crinums, cannas, the potatoes, the Wando peas that had come up (as opposed to the sugar snap and telephone pole peas that I guess rotted in the cold wet ground), the indigo, the redbud and probably more. I question the blueberry blooms.



The dafs are still good and I made some notes on which to add and where for next year. The camellia blooms were frozen but a lot of new have opened. The Carolina jasmine and the forsythia remain.



After a night in New Orleans Thursday we stopped at Clegg’s Friday and made a haul and I took care of most of it yesterday: 2 bags of Hollytone applied to the camellias and young azaleas but that was not quite enough. Hollytone is recommended by the Savannah nursery which mailed me my 3 new camellias. I repotted them up to be kept in the ‘nursery’ for at least a year. Some nursery recommended using cottonseed meal (? Nuccio’s) and I have some old I will plan to use.



I bought another Diospyros virginiana, native persimmon, and planted it on the fence row near the other so as to get them to fruit.



I also planted a Ardesia crenata at the trees at the front entrance. Several of the ones I seeded a few years are doing ok. They have not grown tall or flowered, however. Maybe need some fertilizer---maybe more cottonseed meal.



I bought 2 sorrell for the potager and put them out and decided to reseed the sugar snap and telephone pole peas.



I bought several vegetable plants since I was there: 3 varieties of tomatoes, trying some determinate this year, habanero, jalapeno, banana, and gypsy peppers. Potted them all up to larger pots and will keep in the well house for a time. Have already potted up my sun gold seedlings.



I bought 3 white petunias for the white bed and dug up lirope and put them out. Moved the lirope to the Cage oak and did some weeding of its base. I bought 4 marigolds for the hot bed but will start with them in larger pots. The bed has some color with the late dafs; it needs more plus some yellow narcissis for earlier bloom. Otherwise this bed is winter weeds at the moment with daylily greens. Several of the plants I bought last year did not do well. A couple live and maybe this year will be better.



I need to go back to Clegg’s. They had a catalpa tree which I think I shall get and some Judge Solomon on sale so I could buy more.



I am cutting the grape vines which is taking awhile.



With the weather good today, I got out more. Did some gravel moving to fix the very rutted drive and dug some privet in an azalea bed. Will I ever be able to get ahead? And it is time to mow. Saw Ed Lee mowing Joe’s lawn last week. The highway needs a weed chop.



Saturday 16 March



Cold is the word for this morning. My gardening this week was 4 days in Woodville supervising putting in the plants sent by the landscape architect. Moving a dump truck load of sandy loam and 60 plus bags of pine bark mulch.



Our white iris may be their best ever despite some stalks being bent over with the freeze. The yellow pond iris are beginning. The Pres. Clay azaleas at the entrance are good. And more and more of the formosas are beginning to bloom.



I have done no work here this past week. Yesterday was pilgrimage all day in West Feliciana. Their formosas are ahead of ours.



Although we have had little sun we have had minimal rain as well.



Sunday 17 March



It remains cool and with no recent rain I watered my recent plantings of the last few months. No rain is expected all week this week.



The formosas go forward daily. There are still dafs and snowflakes, also the forsythia. The Republic of West Florida indica has sparse blooms. Camellias still. The indigo I think is going to come back from the base as the freeze not only killed the new leaves but also the stems. The squawweed (yellow flowers) along the roads remain still.



Wednesday 20 March



37° on the rear gallery this morning but warm afternoons. I have mowed the highway these last two days. I have also burned the two burn piles in the northwest; still the large logs remain.



Got ‘Garden and Gun’ this week and there was an article on crinums, specifically about Jenks Farmer in SC who grows and sells them and has had one named Regina’s Disco Lounge where he found it. Ogden says this is Gowenii, a hybrid bred in England by JR Gowen in about 1820. It is a milk and wine hybrid from C. bulbispermum and C. zeylanicum, coming to the South in the mid 1800’s. I was enthused to reread Ogden on these bulbs. They have so many cultivars and hybrids they are as bad as the Camellias.

I plan to dig one of mine in the field to put in the pocket park but will have to wait until rain and the ground softens. I should like to increase my collection but the deer and rabbits like them.



Out in the park watering new plants and picking up sticks and putting chickenwire around Camellias; I notice what is going on. The Hyacinthoides hispanica (aka Scilla campanulata), Spanish bluebell or wood hyacinth is in bloom on the north side of the drive but I can find only 2 plants not blooming on the south side.



Saturday 23 March



This morning 45, still chilly. I went to Woodville to plant yesterday’s plants and to water the plants put out last week.  20 minutes to water. Put out 2 Woodville Red, a Natchez crepe myrtle, and two Judge Solomons.



Yesterday Connie, Tattie and I drove to Forest Hill Louisiana to get plants. First to Larry Bates who comes to graft each year at Bruce Lewis’. He was a talker and found out he went to Lipscomb and knew Connie’s brother, Bailey! He has grafted camellias. I prefer not as the base can get out of hand as it has in a couple of old camellias at HG. But they grow faster he says. We especially wanted to get 2 Woodville Reds for the park. I also got three for myself:



Ville de Nantes, 1897, a sport of Siebold’s 1834 cultivar Donckelarii; first recorded by the French grower Heurtin of Nantes in 1897.

CM Hovey, Macoboy gives 2, 1878 introduced by CM Hovey of Boston; and 1850 with CM Hovey named as its propagator, with syn. Of Colonel Firey, Duc de Devonshire, Firey King, Solaris, Wm. S. Hastie, Mississippi Hastie, Hawei. It was offered for sale in London as Covent Garden in 1878.

Bob’s Tinsie, 1962 from Nuccio’s Nursery.

Grace Albritton, 1972, a chance seedling.

Lady van Sittart, 1887, imported from Japan in 1887, named by Guernsey’s Caledonia Nurseries. Not stable, most common color is white flushed with rose-pink.



I have potted-up my 5 camellias. Larger pots than those from Georgia.



Good prices @ $25, the 4 yr. WR and the others 2 yr. All at the same price.



I then went to Holloway’s to get azaleas. They didn’t have several I wanted. I am trying to increase my collection of indicas but they are hard to find.  I did get 2 Pride of Mobile and 3 Judge Solomon (2 for Woodville Park). These will add to the ones I have. I really want more President Clay for the front entrance. I can’t seem to find out when these were developed. @ $7.50.



I did get a Natchez crepe myrtle for the park since it was cheap. $12.



And waiting for my plants to be brought up I found a rose, Zephirine Drouhin, 1868, Bourbon, repeat climber, red. $18.



All these plants are cheaper than found elsewhere. Although the places are not really condusive for the retail shopper. Some only sell wholesale. They have a big plant sale in early March each year so maybe that is a time to go.



I was looking for the origin of Pride of Mobile and Judge Solomon. Mobile had azaleas from France in the 1700’s. Question if Pride stems from then.



I don’t know exactly why Judge Solomon got its name or who developed it, but I did find in the Southern Garden History Society magazine an article about Arthur Wellesley Solomon, b. Savannah 1872, d. 1962. Grad Georgia Tech, had a laundry business but he was appointed a Chatham Co. Commissioner in 1914 and given the title of ‘judge.’ He had a personal project to plant trees and shrubs around Savannah---live oaks, azaleas, oleanders and camellias. At his home, Wellesley Manor, he established one of the finest collections of camellias. In 1945 he was the driving force to begin the American Camellia Society and he had the idea of a National Camellia Trail---up and down Hwy. 17 on the Atlantic coast. He imported plants from France in 1914 and some from Japan but had great trouble getting them through inspection and still live.



I did find some information about the crepe (not crape except in the North) myrtles. The older Lagerstroemia indica came to this country in the late 18^th century to SC. Named for Magnus von Lagerstroem (1691-1759), Sweedish botanist, director of the Swedish East India Co. and a friend of Linnaeus. They are native to China and Korea. In the 1950’s John Creech of the US National Arboretum sent back seed from Japan of L. fauriei and a flood of new cultivars with Native American names followed.



I ordered more camellias this week from the Camelia Shop, Savannah, since the last ones seemed very good as opposed to the figs I got from Burpee. I have deleted Burpee from my computer.

HA Downing, 1900, originated in the US.

Laura Walker Variegated, 1958. A cultivar of Laura Walker, 1956.

Tama Glitters, 1993. Tama-No-Ura, 1975. It was found growing in the wild by a charcoal burner in 1947 in Tama-no-ura, Fuku’e Island in Nagasaki Prefecture. Nuccio’s Nurseries introduced it to the USA in 1975 and it played a role in developing more in the Tama series.

Bobbie Fain, propagated by Dr. Walter E. Homeyer, Jr. Macon GA, introduced by Nuccio’s, Altadena, CA.



These cost $25, buy 3 get 1 free but $20 shipping.



I unearthed the mirliton but they seem to be gone. Too much water this winter?



The indigo is coming back after the last frost from the ground as opposed to the top like the last go round.



Monday 1 April



Got back from Wilmington where they are a week to 2 behind us. Did Georgetown Tour. Nice water views and many very large live oaks.



Up potted my 4 new camellias. Dug some Ipheion from Habib temple and planted here. Ipheion uniflorum, spring starflowers, originated in Argentina and Uruguay, related to the Alliums. Ogden says they multiply rapidly by offsets, seed and droopers in almost any soil. I put them in the drive bed, under the oak near the patio and under the red rose by the HVAC. They have been at the Habib temple as long as I can remember.



Had some rain while gone. Was 40º this am but sunny this afternoon.



Tuesday 2 April



Almost had a frost this am. 36 on the back gallery. Pecans are leafing out.



Am starting to mow the park; first the south lawn. Lots of sticks to pick up. Cherokee rose in bloom. Some dafs still strong near the crepe myrtle near the SE corner of front gallery. Can’t find a name. A few camellias still good and several with strong new growth. The formosas have reached their peak and starting to fail. Most white iris gone. The tulips in the hot bed are in bloom but lost in the spring weeds.



Monday 8 April



Rain last week stopped the mowing. Big rain last night. Warm temperatures. I have slowly started moving plants out but have sinus congestion and feel poorly.



I did get in a planting of spring lettuce, etc. and the rattlesnake before the rain. Again spring is here and I am behind.



The St. Joseph lilies, Hippeastrum x johnsonii, are starting to bloom and one amaryllis bloomed in well house before I caught it. The red roses at the HVAC have started. The mock oranges are doing their spring show. The azaleas all gone except some white. The yellow pond iris is good.



Friday 12 April



After my ‘feeling poorly’ day on Monday I did get some work in the out of doors. I mowed and finished the hay field but not without problems. Dead battery. The mow job is spotty and sloppy because I have high weeds/grass in many areas and not enough time. Too wet the first of the week. Rain again last night. We go to NOLA today and ILM on Monday. I have gotten most of the worst done and what I have done will be to do over when I get back from ILM. I can’t find my last year’s mowing schedule to compare.



I also got some work in the potager done. Lots of clover pulling (fed to cattle) and some planting. I got in the last of the peas---Velarde. I also put in the butterbeans and pole beans. I also put out tomato and pepper plants. The sun gold were too leggy. The ones I bought at Clegg’s and potted up were better. I have more sun gold coming along.  I put out the shishito which are pretty good.



I was re-reading the Williamsburg Gardener which I think is a great book. I need to make a planting guide and be ready to plant when the time is right. I like their reliance on what nature is doing to decide when to plant; what is blooming or fading, etc. tells what to plant in the potager.



I up-planted or potted the plants I got at Clegg’s Wednesday: basil, zinnia, sweet potato, ichiban eggplant.



And I continue to move out plants from the inside, annex and well house.



Am I still too early? 40’s predicted Monday morning and it is chilly this am. We have really had an up and down winter spring



Several of the young camellias are putting out nice spring growth. I bought more organic fertilizer Wednesday and will put out today. Still some in bloom and I cut a couple. The Pink Perfection from Alabama is very good this year and still in bloom.



The St. Joseph lilies are good. I need more. In the hot bed would be good also. Maybe also some red amaryllis?



Gladiolus byzantinus, corn flag, is in bloom by well house. Those in the shade in the south lawn haven’t bloomed in a couple years.



Some roses are blooming: Stuckey’s red near the HVAC is good. The Jeanne d’Arc in the white bed is blooming---an 1848 Noisette. It blooms but has never been dramatic. Why do I have such trouble with roses here?



Wednesday 24 April



We have been gone to ILM and then New Orleans and tomorrow we leave for Birmingham for the Southern Garden History Society annual meeting.



I have done my Wednesday highway trash duty; picked our lunch salad. The greens this time include grape leaves, violet leaves, lettuce, mizuma, radish leaves, cilantro, sorrel, mint, swiss chard, ginko, carrot leaves, small bits of collards, kale, some sweet potato leaves, and maybe a few more bits.



The main bloom now is the St. Joseph lilies; several roses are in bloom, a few LA iris, a few yellow iris still. The magnolias on the highway have blooms. I even cut a camellia yesterday as well.



The dewberries have started; had our first yesterday. I am also picking poke salet.



I really need to mow if I can find the time. Also put out the pots. Cool weather was still this past weekend but I think is over (40’s). Also I need to put out the potager plants also. Redo the sun gold tomatoes as my first all died---too leggy and too cool.



Thursday 2 May



Back from the 37^th Southern Garden History meeting in Birmingham, not as good as last year. The lectures were just not there. Now the gardens on tour all dated from the first part of the 20^th century and were located in the early mountain suburbs; from pristinely manicured to the restoration of one that had until last year kudzu covering all of it. I think they are going to do 2022 in ILM.



Back here to try to get some work done. Rain when we left but need to water pots as the temperatures are now reaching 90.



I have started over, mowing the whole park, starting with the highway. It is the latest some of it has been mowed and there are so many limbs to pick up and I have a bad cold. Oh well. We are going to NOLA this weekend but have another week before we leave for Wilmington so I will get it done.



I still haven’t put out all the pots especially the aloes, cacti, succulents, and agave in the back of the well house. Some pots remain in the annex as I am painting the gallery and will move them out as that is done.



In the annex the second orchid (the one from Marsha) has bloomed. I water them about once a week with warm water and lately with some soluble fertilizer. Both are white Phalaenopsis. CL Blume created this genus in 1825. I do not know what the rescue orchid from Fred is. It is growing but has made no attempt to bloom. I think it may be a Cattleya, a unifoliate with a pseudobulb. They were named in 1824 by John Lindley, in honour of Willam Cattley, collector of exotic plants; country of origin, Brazil.



I have cut a few straggling camellias for the house. One nice one this year has been the Pink Perfection from Alabama. It is a small bloom and mostly white with a pale pink edge.



The St. Joseph lilies are fading. I need more. I have some amaryllis also in bloom. They would be good to have around at this time too.



The yellow iris at the pond are gone. Those in the bog bed are still there as well as the Louisiana iris. Need more of both there.



The white bed has all three white roses blooming; Lemarque, Jeanne d’arc, and Iceberg. The white yarrow has started. The petunias I put in earlier are back. They were great but the fire ants decided to invade and almost did them in.



In the hot bed the summer plants are beginning to overtake the early spring weeds. I need to clean up and put in the zinnia and marigolds. The daylilies have big buds. The plants from last years’ planting have not done well. Not particularly strong plants I think.



The potager is in need. The last planting of lettuce, etc. is producing. Those I put out in a pot did not do well. My replanting of snow peas is not good.



I am planting the Phlox stolonifera ‘Weesie Smith’ in the drive bed. I got 2 free in Birmingham at the Southern Garden History Society. One can buy it @$16 from Plants Delights where Avant said he named it after Weesie. I put one there and Avant says it spreads well so I will put the other elsewhere. Magnolia had an article in Summer 2018 about Weesie, b. Birmingham in 1927, Louise Walker Goodall. Her grandfather Robert Jemison, Jr. was the original developer of Mountain Brook. Weesie was very active in gardening, wild natives, many garden organizations, etc. The Phlox stolonifera is her trademark. It has bright blue flowers in early spring, shade tolerant, z. 7-9.



I was looking at Ogden to see about planning my spring bulb order and ran into Aztec lilies. Why haven’t I bought them before? I bought 5 this morning from Brent and Beckey’s. The Aztec lily (Sprekelia formosissima) is from Mexico and behaves like rain lilies. I think it will work in the hot bed. Ogden says it responds to rain blooming both spring and fall.



I have been cutting roses, the clusters of the pink from the potager fence that Stuckey planted---name? And similar clusters of white from near the well house. I do not know that name either. I like roses but have not had success here at HG.



Saturday May 4



Rain has started. I moved all the pots out of the well house this morning. I also ordered some plants from Southern Bulb Company:

            Pink rain lily, Habranthus robustus, 2@$5 (1-3 bulbs). These are said to repeat during the summer and spread easily. I need to put them in a bed and pot up seed. Ogden notes this is from Argentina and is sometimes called a Zephyranthes.

            Zephyranthes candida, white rain lily, 10 bulbs for $10. Ogden says native to the delta shores of the Rio de La Plata, South America. This is a fall bloomer.

            Hymenocallis, Tropical Giant, $12. Ogden notes that hymenocallis in the South are old heirloom flowers originally brought from the tropical shores of the Antilles and the Spanish Main. The early explorer Oviedo encountered his first lirios blancos (white lilies) growing on beaches near Porto Bello, Panama, in 1535. Since no honest botanical name is forthcoming for the venerable spider lilies of Southern gardens, the most acceptable tag may be “Tropical Giant”. They grow in swampy areas as well as high ground and flower in July. Maybe to my bog garden.



The pink oleander by the steps has started to bloom. Oleanders do not do so well here. I think they need full sun and to be a little further south.



Wednesday 8 May



Finished my first full round of mowing, 12.75 hours. Only lack the cemetery. It has started to rain.



I have gotten some things in, in the potager, these last several days.

            Mexican Sour Gherkin, heirloom, Pinetree, eat when smaller than a grape! I hope we like them better than the West India Gherkin we tried a few years ago.

            Cucuzzi, Guinea Bean, Zuchetta, Italian heirloom grown by Jefferson. Milder than luffa. Southern Exposure Seed Exchange

            Burmese Okra, Burmese heirloom. Southern Exposure Seed Exchange.

            Kiowah Pink Eyed Purple Hull Pea, named for the Native American tribe who welcomed English settlers to Charleston. SESE.

            Big Red Ripper, VA and NC heirloom. SESE.

            Parisian Pickle, French heirloom, 1880. PT.

            King of the Garden Pole Lima, heirloom 1883. My Speckled Calico Pole have not come up well. They have not done well the several years I have grown them. Lots of vines but poor producers.

            Caserta Zucchini, PT, 1949 All America Award. Bush.



The edible podded peas have been a real flop this year.



I have had a harvest of English peas from the Knight. The Telephone Pole have good vines.



The daylilies are now blooming in the hot bed. The spring weeds are gone and the marigolds and zinnias are now in the ground. I don’t think I have all the daylilies and cannas that I planted last year. Hard to tell where I planted what.



I also planted 3 figs today. This is my year of the fig. My others have not done particularly well. Weather, location? A tree smashed one that is only now coming out.



An article last June in Wrightsville Beach Magazine on figs got me started. They noted 6 varieties and I found 5 of them:

            Brown Turkey, origins back to early 1700’s when it was first introduced to England. Pulp not as sweet. 5 lobed leaves as opposed to most with 3. Bought at Becnel.

            Calimyrna, a Turkish fig with golden skin and nutty flavor, I did not find.

            Black Mission, Perhaps the most esteemed, originating in the Balearic Islands off the coast of Spain. Black-purple shin with light strawberry pulp, a heavy first crop (breba) in early summer and another crop in the late fall. Bought from Burpee, tiny plant. I have it potted up.

            Celeste, a Southern favorite, pear-shaped with purple-brown skin and a very light pink pulp. Sweet and also called a honey or sugar fig. Bought Klegg’s.

            Kadota, a common green fig grown in California, thousands of years old. Pliny the Elder is said to have commended this variety, known in Italy as the Dotatto. Skin greenish yellow with an amber pulp. Bought Becnel.

            Marseille, a Jefferson favorite, honey sweet creamy flesh and a tart green skin. Bought Burpee, also a tiny plant and have potted up.



I finally decided to put them on the south slope below the potager and put the Brown Turkey, Celeste and Kadota in today.



Thursday 9 May



Today before the downpour started I planted the Zamia integrifolia from Peckerwood under the shrubs on the drive border. I had kept it inside during the winter and should mulch this winter. In Odenwald he talks of Zamia floridana, Coontie, native to Florida. Peckerwood says this is the same and the name should be integrifolia. It is native to Florida and some of the islands.



I also planted the plant from the plant swap last fall at the Feliciana Gardeners. No label and I am not sure what it is. I also put it in a space in the drive border. I believe it to be a clerodendron. Not sure which one. It may need more space.



The alstroemeria I brought from Alabama and which has been overtaken by the indigo has sent blooms up above the indigo!



Saturday 11 May



It’s raining again, but I did get to weed the peppers and tomatoes and put some compost on them.



And yesterday afternoon visited with Randy Harelson in New Roads to start planning the Wilmington annual meeting of the SGHS. Also Russell’s ‘boys’ texted they would be able to weed the pocket park. Polly had written about putting down sod!!



I picked dewberries today, they are slowing down.





Thursday 23 May



Back from ILM where there is drought. A rain here at the end of last week but I watered pots yesterday. Temps are in high 80’s.

I started mowing yesterday with the highway.



Planted the Aztec lilies (Sprekelia formoissima) in the hot bed. From Brent and Becky.



Planted the pink rain lilies (Habranthus robustus) near the SW corner of the house and in the drive bed; the white rain lily (Zephyranthes candida) in the bog along with the Tropical giant (Hymenocallis). The bog is growing some large yellow iris (Iris pseudocorus) and Louisiana Iris.



Blooms:

Cape Jasmine, stokesia, white achillea, daylilies, lantana, first cannas, hydrangeas, pink oleander, magnolia, white glads in potager.



The tumeric in the pot and in the bed are up. The vines of Gloriosa lily are several feet.



Thursday 30 May 



Busy week but hot and dry necessitating watering, mostly the pots but also newly planted things.



Put another coat on a section of the rear gallery this morning. Little by little. Have moved out almost all of the pots in the annex and have closed the blinds there to keep it cooler. Leaving only the orchids which are nicely in bloom. I have moved the clivia out onto a table this year. It needs light but no sun directly as well as the bromeliads I have. I have put them on the gallery also to see if I can get them to do better, bright light but no direct sun (like on the patio where they have been).



I am still mowing, for about a week now. The earlier grass is growing heartily so the soil has been wet up until now. Cutting most of the lycoris leaves and many of the narcissus leaves. The bahia grass seed stalks are here. I have ordered more narcissus for fall planting which I did not do last year.



Working in the potager. Salads are getting a lot of arugula. The peas are fading. Green beans are in. Harvesting green onions. Dewberries out, blueberries in. I have been weeding, putting out compost and mulching with hay. Need to do a lot more of that. Also still planting; way behind with that. Trying to get some things in this morning. It may rain this afternoon---may.



The cape jasmine bushes are full. The old best one has had some dieback? The hisbiscus are starting to bloom. Having crinums here and there. The elderberry are full of bloom.



In the hot bed the 2 old clumps of daylilies are doing well. The new ones are weak, one with a bloom. (The pastel colored ones in the tropical bed have bloomed but never have done well, either on the allée where the deer ate them, nor in the present location where they have been for a few years. The daylilies I moved from the north border last year are blooming by the HVAC.



A glad blooming in the hot bed, a soft orange, not hot. I have been cutting white glads for the house in the potager. I have also cut seed heads from the garlic. A few magnolia blooms but they only last for a day.



The achillea is beginning in the hot bed and is peak in the white bed. Stokesia in white bed. The nice white petunias are dead; 1^st attached by fire ants then I think the drought. They were nice; might try again next year.



Last Saturday I went to Woodville, and Jason and Thomas (paid), and the librarian and I weeded for 5 hours and I watered the new plants. Moved some pond iris to the wet spot. I have plans to move more plants. The park is getting an award from Mississippi Mainstreet for Belinda Stewart’s design. Its ok but I could have done as well and I did do a plan. The plant plan by the landscape architect was a farce and she got paid!!! I rearranged and added to and will continue to change.



Also working on the ILM SGHS meeting for 2022. Larry has been very helpful and I have talked with Eric Kozen, director of Oakdale, who was also helpful and energetic; lots of ideas.



Tuesday 4 June  



First thing this morning was to get water from the HVAC drip (rainwater tubs dry at the house) and water the pots in the patio that were wilted. I don’t want to lose the citrus but the last 2 weeks of dry 90’s has been brutal. A good rain is expected beginning tomorrow which may work well as we are leaving for Scotland Thursday (50’s and rain).



I have finished painting the rear gallery and have all the plants out, even cut a glad in hot bed that was falling over and put it in a vase on the newly painted table. Have the clivia and bromeliads on the table on the north side that gets no direct sun.



I have started painting the rusty white railings on the patio with Covington blue also.



The cream daylilies in the white bed are in bloom. I noticed one of the new Aztec lilies in bloom! The gardenias continue great. The one near the drive has huge blooms that I had not noticed before.



Yesterday I did a long awaited visit to the highway ditch for gravel for the allée. More needed. I also raked leaves at the gate and mulched the azaleas there. The new ardisia is in bloom. The Tombstone rose grows some. I mulched. The white rose by the gate did not bloom. Too shady. I need to take cuttings of both to be planted elsewhere. On my to-do list.



I just finished reading a book on no work gardening which is basically using lots of mulch to keep weeds away, hold water and build soil. It is mostly about the vegetable garden and Ruth Stout, the author, uses hay---which I have plenty of. I just need to haul it and put it out. I got more yesterday. I have mulched most of my present plantings.



I have mowed all but the area north of the allée, ie the area around the cemetery and the hay field and also the cemetery itself. It is so hot and dusty. Will do after the rains when I get back.



I did go to Woodville yesterday and water the plants. The weeds are on their way back. Maybe I can get a little ahead by pulling after the rains---maybe not. Paid $120 to the boys a week ago for 5 hours plus myself for free for 5 hours and about 3 hours by the new librarian.



Today in anticipation of rain coming I weeded and planted in the potager and have most stuff planted that can be.



Thursday 6 June 



The rain began yesterday and we have had about 2 inches so far and much cooler weather, lower 80’s. We leave for Scotland where the temperature is in the 50’s!



Have lost my weeping rosemary and the thyme. Both dried up? Lack of water, too hot and humid? Some plants die and I know not why. The jujube in the orchard died last winter but not the one by the well house? I have lost a couple camellias in the park? I think deer and lack of timely water.



Saturday 15 June 



Just back from Scotland. Had a big rain when we left about a week earlier, a couple inches. So things did pretty well. Some stress on pots in patio despite putting them where they get less sun. And some things just need more water.



Visited houses and gardens in Scotland. Several had some smaller spaces in good order but the larger area was less kept. The Prince’s creation at Dumfries was the best. The plantings around the house in good order. Also a good restoration/recreation in the walled garden. Surely with the hay idea I can get my walled garden in order. There were a lot of  newer plantings on the estate and some remarkably large trees, Wellantonia I think. Glenapp Castle Hotel had a nice setting on the sea overlooking Ailsa Craig and had nice grounds but it is not the estate of a gardener. An area billed as having been designed by Jekyle showed no sign. Inveraray Castle is also on the sea. They are doing some work on their walled garden but the grounds are extensive and open to the public as a park and children’s play area. The long border on the land side of the castle was fairly well kept. Next to Traquair, the oldest inhabited house in Scotland; it has been a museum since the 1950’s and seems like a museum. Their walled garden is non existent. Beds around the house were so-so. Beautiful setting with the long lawn in the front leading to the locked bear gates. The tours made me want to improve but I have learned, not with the same plants. And I didn’t see the problem anywhere that we have with exotic plants turned to weeds like privet or Chinese tallow tree.



Joe clipped our front pasture. It looks very good and still very green. This does cut the weeds to give the grass some help.



I certainly need to mow but I am waiting for rain to cut the dust before I start. I have only about a week before we leave for Wilmington and then about a week before we go to Arizona.



My orchids still look good in the annex. I moved the non-blooming one to the shade garden. This seemed to work well last year. The clivia and the bromeliad are on the table on the gallery---lots of light but no sun.



The hibiscus on the north side of the annex are blooming well and some I can see through the north windows of the annex. I need some more of these for the park as they seem to be drought tolerant. I am using the air conditioner water for watering but the tub will kill the mondo grass so I am going to transplant that.



I used the water to give my pots a good soaking plus some of the plants in the park. A couple of camellias have bitten the dust. Another White by the Gate gone.



The hot bed is probably at its height. The cannas are blooming. The Aztec lilies have bloomed. If they continue to be good I could use more of them. The glads are more pastel than orange as billed. Not for my hot garden. The yellow daylilies have finished. The orange daylily has bloomed. The red is still going. The yellow orange achillea I think will be good. It is blooming. 



In the white bed are the daylilies, Shasta daisies, some roses, jasmine and achillea.



There are some crinums around. The gardenias are about gone. The crepe myrtles are coming. A white on the lower farm drive has been in bloom. The white on the north of the house is in bloom and some in the drive garden are starting. There are hydrangeas. Mine do poorly on the north side of the house---too dry.



In the potager the arugula is good and other greens for salad continue. An abundance of rattlesnake green beans. I have left some of the largest for seed. The peppers are producing: shishito, banana, jalapeno, and a sweet pepper. Tons of blueberries.





Thursday, 4 July



Hot, hot, hot. I get little outside work done but I try.



I read in ‘Southern Living’s’ July issue about the Bradford melon. Farmer Nat Bradford has mounted a comeback in Sumter SC of the Bradford melon and is also producing Bradford okra. The watermelon  begins with a prisoner of the Revolution  named John Franklin Lawson who scored a wedge of watermelon as a water source on a pirate ship bound for the West Indies. It tasted so good he saved the seeds for his eventual return to the States. Around 1840, Nathaniel Napoleon Bradford crossed the Lawson watermelon with the Mountain Sweet and the Bradford was born. The melon’s thin skin prevents it from being shipped so it fell out of favor with commercial growers.



Nat Bradford, the great-great-great-grandson of the developer grew up with the family having a patch and saving seed. His father was a dermatologist and did not farm. In 1997 Brad found an 1850’s book heralding the Bradford watermelon as one of the finest. Could that be our melon? David Shields, a food historian and professor at the University of South Carolina, confirmed that it was in 2012. Nat was running his landscape business but returned to the family farm to return the melon to market. He now also grows heirloom greens and okra. The melon has a cotton candy texture, intense sweetness, and white seed and an edible rind like a cucumber.



I went on the website and this led me to a site to buy seed for both the melon and the okra, said to be long and tender.



Last week I was in Wilmington and returned to find things ok. There was a big rain the day we left but none of note since. So I am having to water now.



The grass is high and in need of mowing but we leave for Arizona on this coming Monday and I plan to mow when I get back. Did our usual trash pickup yesterday on the highway. Showed Bobby the Dung Gate of Dumfries and he thinks he and Don can do it for our entrance. The design I liked and the name as well---it was the gate to bring the dung into the walled garden.



I have potted up the ‘Eye Scream’ pup (from Plant Delights) to take to ILM. Need plants that can tolerate drought as Wilmington has had one, and most things in my pots there died plus 2 azaleas mostly dead. They may survive. I am also potting up plants for the pot hangers on the porch. The old pot plants survive but in a dilapidated state. I need to renew. Also potted up a pup of Squid for ILM.



The potager is still producing pot greens, especially arugula. The mizuma that turned out to be good this year was eaten by something. Some of my new plantings have come up but not well. Tomatoes producing poorly. The green beans are again producing especially the rattlesnake. I have saved the overgrown pods found on my return from Scotland. I cut the first okra. Peppers are good, especially the shishitos. I am weeding and putting down hay. There are blooms on the Jerusalem artichokes.



On the patio the shell ginger has another bloom, not very noticeable. The Shasta daisies are in bloom. The cannas still bloom in the hot bed, coleus growing as are the orange zinnias and the marigolds. The red zinnia plants have come up. The Texas star hibiscus has been good. The yellow daylily is blooming.



Trying to keep the pots of citrus watered and in a place not so hot as to dry out in my absences. I am also painting the iron work---Covington blue. The rear gallery is painted with new blue rugs and new ceiling fans. So drinks are there in the evening instead of the front gallery. They are to be painted this summer as I can get to it. Any work outside is hard as the felt temperature is over 100.



One orchid has lost its bloom so it has been moved to its shady spot.



Friday, 5 July



Watering. Went to Woodville to water the park. Plants good. Hydrangea in bloom, Crepe Myrtle and the Abelia. Some blooms also on Vitex.



Watering in the park, especially the new plants and the smaller camellias. Weeding them also. A few dead. Cut the purple crinums smothered by the azalea bed and brought them in to look at. A few pink zephranthes out despite the lack of rain.



Reading about growing cactus as we get ready to go to Tucson. I have a cholla I got there near the Arizona Inn, not sure which one. I will hope to get a couple more. I just need to winter most of these inside.



Thursday 18 July



Just back from the West. Mowing. That’s what I seem to do between trips. There was a hurricane---Barry, while we were gone. Not as much rain as expected but wind. Lots of sticks down and a couple large trees. A remaining big one behind the potager took down the pasture fence and a remaining big one in the front pasture. Will need some chainsaw action but not right now.



I love the western landscape, so different from here. I did get some plants. B&B Cactus Farm supplied:

            An Indian fig cactus, Opuntia ficus-indica, which has spineless pads and I hope to use as food. It does have glochids, however. Scott Calhoun of Tucson writes that it is one of the more thirsty of the prickly pears. Possibly from central Mexico but naturalized in the Mediterranean, South Africa, and Australia. Zone 9. I have it near the old metal table with other cacti. Moved one of the Eastern prickly pear, Opuntia humifusa, from ILM to the same clumping.

            I also bought a purple cactus, Opuntia santa-rita, at B&B. Zone 6.

            And finally a small totem pole, Lophocereus schottii forma monstrosus, Z. 9b. It does not flower or set fruit. I had no room for more specimens and Connie was getting very hot. I did buy a 40 lb. bag of their potting soil.



We next visited Native Seeds and they were having their monsoon rain plant sale and I got another Agave Americana ‘Mediopicta Alba’ which I had, but lost?? Z. 8b. From Mexico. Slowly offsetting. I looked for agave at B&B but didn’t find any that I didn’t have. Theirs are cheaper but Plant Delights has a much bigger variety. I also got a non cactus or agave, an ocotilla, Fouquieria splendens. It has some un-named cactus in the pot.



In a vacant lot near the Arizona Inn, I got a couple of cactus pieces. Is it the same as the one I have rooted before? Both are cholla I think. The new one is a chain-fruit or jumping cholla, Cylindropuntia fulgida. The old one may be a pencil cholla, Cylindropuntia arbuscula. Used the cactus soil to pot up the two pieces.



I plan to have these desert plants in the hot part of the patio. Plan to repot the mesquite, Prosopis velutina, to maybe grow a small tree. Need to move all inside in the winter, especially the tender plants but all these desert plants benefit from the lack of winter rains. The mesquite I am afraid to plant out as it might be invasive.



I also brought some seed of palo verde, Parkinsonia microphylla or florida.



Out in the park mowing I saw one pink zepharanthes, the crepe myrtle are blooming. On the patio the hot bed has cannas primarily. I am watering the pots between mowing.



The hymenocallis in the white bed started blooming as we left for Arizona and finished as we returned.



Tuesday 30 July



We left a week ago Monday for ILM after a gully washer on Sunday afternoon. Rain again this Sunday and a gully washer again this morning. We leave again this Thursday for a long weekend in NOLA so I will wait until the following week to mow. Could that be my last mow. Not if we keep getting the rain we have had this summer. The pastures with fewer cattle have plenty of grass. I want to mow just before the lycoris come out.



My back is hurting from lifting in ILM I think so am not doing so much. I was watching a U-tube by Tony Avent this afternoon on agaves. And I got out an old catalogue of his to follow along. I think I have a name for the agave I found in the wild in Arizona last year. Tony has Agave lechuguilla that he got in El Paso. It is an indicator plant of the Chihuahuan Desert but I guess it could have been in Arizona which I think is where I got it in the desert near the museum.



I have repotted the mesquite using the cactus mix and also planted the cactus that came with the cotillo. I have up potted the crinum that I have grown from seed.



The potager is full of weeds, started some weeding today. Harvest is bountiful for the shishito and other peppers, the sun gold tomatoes. Getting some peas and okra. The muncher cucumber seems to perform well.



The ‘Alabama lily’ as I call it (Lilium formosanum) is in bloom though not as abundant as in the past. And an amaryllis in a pot, looks like a St. Joseph Lily, but wrong season. Wrong for amaryllis’ also.



Monday 5 August



Rain last night as we came in from NOLA. Rain again this afternoon. I need to mow. Leave again in 1 week.



More Lilium formosanum in bloom.



The orange gingers next to the porch are in bloom. This is some type of Hedychium, ginger lily or butterfly ginger. There are lots of hybrids. Perhaps I should order more. Maybe for the hot bed.



Ogden notes after his discussion of cannas that “gingers manage an air of grace few cannas can approach. These elegant perennials show a special affinity for the balmy, sometimes steamy climate of the South. Just as camellias command winter scenes…gingers take charge over summer plantings….For gardeners in the warm South, a summer without the opulent charms of gingers would be insufferable.”



There are some phlox blooming in the drive bed.



I cut some sunflowers (Arikara, Helianthus annuus) in the potager along with some Indian shot red cannas for a bouquet on the rear gallery. These sunflowers are doing nicely this year. The seed is from SSE, collected by Melvin Gilmore from the Arikara tribe at the Fort Berthold Reservation. First offered commercially by Oscar H. Will in 1930. Traditionally grown for its masses of edible seeds.



Thursday 8 August



I am weeding in various places, particularily the patio plus sweeping. I have repotted the Agave lophantha quadricolor bought in Tucson in 2016. It is said to be good at off-setting and I potted up 5 or 6 new ones. Avent notes it is Z 8a to 10b, 18”, origin Mexico. I shall take 1 or 2 to ILM. I am taking all my Agaves inside for the winter even if they are said to be hardy here as wet and cold are unfriendly to them.



I am getting some red blooms on the oleander from the Arizona Inn. I read that they like the sun and heat but need water but I have found they are more drought tolerant than most of the plants I have in pots. I have them along the edge where I am keeping things to shade roots and therefore conserve water, but I think I shall move them to more sun and water them more. Also my bird of paradise has never flowered. I have read it likes the sun and have given it that but apparently although it tolerates drought it wants water. So oleander and bird in the sun and to get water.



I have moved the old white ginger, Hedychium coronarium, to a shadier position after reading they liked it as under-story plants. I wanted it in the white garden but that is too dry and too hot. Ogden states, “In the South this favorite thrives in filtered shade or full sun and often naturalizes near streams or wetlands where it grows as a partial aquatic.” Maybe I should move some to the bog garden on the north. It is in full sun but wet. This one is from the Himalayan foothills but now naturalized in the moist tropics and subtropics.



I harvested a cushaw today. It is a cucurbita-mixta, heirloom 1820’s. It is a winter squash but I cut this one young to eat like a summer squash. I have also harvested 2 cucuzzi, Lagenaria siceraria, an Italian heirloom grown by Jefferson. Said to be a great zucchini substitute.



Monday 19 August 



When we got back Saturday there had been no rain and temps in the high 90’s the previous week. The pots on the patio were in trouble and I did a quick water and again Sunday morning. Sunday afternoon was a good rain. I think one citrus has lost a lot of leaves and the ixia lost some leaves. Otherwise I think all survived. It is still hot in the 90’s and expecting rain this afternoon. I need to mow. I was going to get diesel yesterday but the pumps at Buffalo Services were not working. I did get diesel at Dalton’s today but by the time the grass had dried I had my leg hurting and have been resting since. I had done little, water the pots on the porch, harvest a salad, weed the patio round bed. I did root some rosemary from ILM.



Yesterday I did harvest a lot of peppers, especially shishito; many okra, one cuc, a cushaw, and a mess of peas and butterbeans too. Sungold tomatoes and small red ones from a plant that volunteered.



Autumn clematis in full bloom. The night blooming cereus has also had blooms. And the Arabian jasmine, Jasminum Sambac, Maid of Orleans, or Arabian tea jasmine is in bloom in its pot. The yellow daylily in the hot bed is re-blooming.



Tuesday 27 August



We have had a week of much rain and the tractor is still in the shop so the grass has only to grow.



We are getting the barn roof painted (today) and the main roof replaced.



I have been doing little to give my leg respite and it is better. I have picked up some trash in the garage to go to the dump tomorrow. I found some orchid bark in the well house and have changed out the bark of my three orchids. I potted up 4 live oaks from Mrs. Stream’s in NOLA.



I saw some lycoris in bloom in St. Francisville Sunday. None here yet and hopefully I will get my mow in beforehand.



I found some winged beans that volunteered in the potager.



I have also tried to root some Lady Banks, the white one from Tombstone which is not flourishing where it is. Also the Fortuniana, R.xfortuniana Species, which I had a Belvedere. It is in too shady a spot. I would like to try them both in other locations, more sun needed.



The Fortuniana is from 1845 and named after its discoverer, Robert Fortune, a young Scot under-gardener who found the rose in Canton China. Fortune (1812-1880) made several journeys to China between 1844-1850. On his first trip, made for the Royal Horticultural Society, he was able to visit Fa-tee Nursery (Flowerland Nursery) in Canton. Through this nursery, plants from China were distributed to the rest of the world via collectors like Fortune. The nursery was over 200 years old at the time of his visit.[1]



There is a white dahlia in bloom. And the white blooming garlic chives, Allium tuberosum, in pots is in full bloom.



Wednesday 18 Sept.



Did the highway trash pick up this morning. A lot; we have been gone more than 2 weeks, to ILM for Hurricane Dorian. Fortunately not bad.



I did get the place mowed just before we left but the battery was not charging so took the tractor back Monday. The grass is again high. John Leake cut the hay field and is going to bale it.



We had some rain Monday but pots on the patio in bad shape when I returned.



I am cutting branches especially the big one in the cedar on the south farm road.



About the only thing in the potager is okra.



But the lycoris have started!



Friday 20 Sept.



An Oxblood Lily (Rhodophiala bifida) has appeared in the south drive bed. Native of Argentina and Uruguay. In the 1840’s central Texas attracted immigrants from Germany. One among them Peter Henry Oberwetter introduced oxblood lilies to America after the Civil War.  I had first thought this was an Aztec Lily until I looked at my records.



No rain. I water pots mostly but have watered some of the new plants in the ground. The lantana along the south drive are good. The golden rod seem about to pop.



John Leake has cut the hayfield and raked and baled it: 10 and a half bales.

I have made more cuttings of Fortuniana and bought some burgundy sweet potato vine cuttings from New Orleans to root.



Thursday 26 September



Got the John Deere back. Took forever to find the problem but since it had just been in the shop for this problem they did not charge me for labor. I may now after I come back from ILM in October do some mowing of high grass. We’ll see. So dry now and still in the 90’s.



Watering pots and some recently planted plants.



More lycoris coming. Could be more perhaps if we had rain. The goldenrod are still holding out. Is that lack of rain also?



Potager producing okra. Best year for that in a long while. Salad greens are sparse.



Hay is now in the barn. 10 bales of ours and 40 from the Billings, I think.



I’m using these sunny days to paint the upper gallery. About have that one done, then to the lower gallery, clean mildew and then paint. We have a new roof with the front gutters cleaned out. We’ll see how that goes when we get a rain.



Saturday 5 October



Returned last night from ILM. Hot and dry there as well, but as we came in last night there was rain, about an inch. We have had the hottest September on record with temps in the 90’s, and maybe the driest, hardly any rain. As we are often gone I need to have plants that can survive without me. I have been able to keep the hanging baskets of fern ok. And the pots on the gallery since they stay in the shade seem to do ok. Some of the plants in pots on the patio can’t make it easily. So my agave collection and cacti, etc. are doing fine. But to be on the safe side they need to be moved inside in the winter. I need the citrus on a more shady spot for the summer and then moved next to the brick wall which is warmer and drier than in the winter. More and more its about how to deal with extremes, hot, dry, cold, wet.



The goldenrod are now in color and I noticed a yellow lycoris in the drive bed! And also by the bed by the HVAC units. More lycoris are blooming now. We have hundreds or maybe thousands. The first sasanquas are in bloom, the purple by the drive. Not here but along the roadside are tons of perennial sunflowers, Helianthus species.



Joe-pye weed, Eutrochium fistulosum, is in bloom. It is in the aster family. Supposedly named after an 18^th century man.



So fall is coming even though the temperatures are high summer.



Sunday 6 October



Putting out the chicken wire that I should have been finished with last spring, but in the summer the deer are not so bad. They are back now and have eaten the leaves off the new (and old) figs so I am working on them today, fencing and mulching with pine straw and some water to boot. Added the tea plants on the south drive along with the crepe myrtle that has Woodrow Wilson ties. It has been hit yearly and is nothing but a small sturdy trunk. The tea plants often get hit as well. And there is some azalea damage. I hope this chicken wire will be helpful over the next few years until some of these plants get large enough to not need protection. Watered the new azalea. It is not as droopy as it has been this past month. Temperature still 90 today.



Thursday 10 October 



Went to Clegg’s a couple days ago and purchased collard plants, Tuscano kale, and broccoli and put them out yesterday in a hole with a shovel full of compost. I also got some lettuce plants, a first for me and potted them. Also a new thyme, my old having retired. Today I put out seeds: lettuce, radish, mizuma, arugula, parsnips, parsley, carrots, beets. Also nasturtiums in pots. The temperature is still warm but not the 90’s and dry but rain is expected.



I look at the patio hot bed. The cannas take up most of the space and they are so ratty with the leaf rollers. Can I do something else?



Friday 11 October



Finally a little rain. And I mean a little.



More red lycoris, Lycoris radiata, the red spider lily. L. radiata probably came to North America before the beginning of the 19^th century although early records are few according to Ogden. The old variety are triploid and sterile and have tremendous vigor and hardiness. After WWII commercial growers in Japan began supplying America with a smaller form L. radiata var. pumila. These produce flowers a couple weeks earlier. Lycoris are native to Myanmar, China, Japan, and Korea. Which Lycoris do I have? Or both? I suspect the post WWII period to be when most of the park at Holly Grove was planted, but some could have been planted earlier as some are found in fields outside the park. How many do we have? I counted today one small cluster near the HVAC as having 50 flowers!



The yellow variety, Lycoris aurea may be the first lycoris cultivated in America as these bulbs are common about the old Spanish city of St. Augustine and presumably have been there since colonial times.  These are from the subtropical provinces of China, Taiwan and Vietnam. Floridians know these as hurricane lilies. The Mandarin name is hu di xiao, suddenly the earth smiles. L. aurea largely disappeared from the nursery trade after WWII and its place taken by L. traubii, which Japanese nurserymen discovered on Taiwan. These blooms have wider, more flattened petals.



Have up potted one curry leaf, Murraya koenigii, (native to India and Ceylon according to Logees who does sell it though I brought mine back from India) and potted one that volunteered in the patio bricks. I do like dishes done with these leaves.



Monday 21 October



Rain today. We had a good one last week also. The brassicas from Cleggs are doing well and I harvested a mess of greens today. Still getting okra and shishitos. Salad fixins are available.



The mirliton is all wilted? I am not having good luck this year.



The lycoris may be their best this year. There is a long swath of them along the lower farm drive plus lots more at varying places along the allée.



More blooms on the sasanquas. The deer are out but I have tried to get my wire around all my susceptible plants. It may help.



I was back at Clegg’s this past week. Got turnip seed (labeled Naylors) which I planted today. I also got some yellow snap dragons, yellow and blue violas which I have potted. I bought a small ‘parlor palm’ which I up-potted and hope next summer to have it larger and on the up gallery for my tropical seating area. It may be a Chamaedorea. My indoor gardening book calls them dwarf so this may not be what I wished.  I also succumbed to another camellia, sea foam. I think it is one I saw in Houston last spring. It is from Green Nurseries in Fairhope Alabama (since 1932). They note it is a double white on a tree-like grower. “Likely the very finest white C. Japonica in existence.” !!!



Friday and Saturday were spent at the Southern Garden Symposium. I didn’t buy any plants, bought books: bid $15 (no competition) for Flowers Native to the Deep South by Caroline Dormon, (copyright 1958, this edition 1959); Planting –a new perspective by Piet Oudolf & Noel Kingsbury; Garden Lust—a botanical tour of the world’s best new gardens by Christopher Woods. Woods spoke Saturday morning and gave the best performance of the symposium. I bought the book because it has pretty pictures. Oudolf was not there but we saw a long film about him and there was another presentation about his work. One wants to emulate his plantings. Probably not practical for me.



I have known of Caroline Dormon before, along with Elizabeth Lawrence and William Lanier Hunt, some of whose books I have. I will now sample one of Dormon’s. Dormon (1888-1971) was born in the Bienville Parish seat of Arcadia. She lived most of her life in the family summer home, Briarwood, now the Caroline Dorman Nature Preserve, in Natchitoche Parish. She considered her life’s work as collecting and nurturing native trees, shrubs, and flowers of Louisiana and the coastal plain. She was known as an artist, writer, forester and horticulturist.



The most informative presentation was Friday morning on camellias (and azaleas by default) by Bart Brechter, the gardener from Houston (Bayou Bend and the Museum of Fine Arts) who spoke in Jacksonville at the Southern Garden History Society meeting and who inspired us to go on the Azalea Trail in Houston last spring.



Brechter gave a lot of information about azaleas and camellias and I took a lot of notes. He didn’t get off much on names as he noted there are about 20,000 varieties. Some notes to keep in mind:

1. mulch late winter/early spring with preferably pine straw
2. fertilize cotton seed meal (great source nitrogen) once/month for the 1^st year, March---November. Spring and summer years 2-3 and possibly afterward.
3. Plant 1-2 inches above soil line; do not cut root ball, use hands to unravel. Add mulch around root for them to grow into as all the roots are in about the top 6 inches.
4. He does use an organic fertilizer, Microlife, which I can get in NOLA
5. He uses orange oil (1 oz./gal water with liquid soap, ½ tsp per gal.) for an insecticide. He uses only systemic insecticides so as to protect microbes in soil. He uses Neem oil (labeled as insecticide but he says is better as fungicide) for petal blight.
6. Root camellias in mid to late summer with the cinnimon color stem, not hardened, not green.

The sweet olive, Osmanthus fragrans, is enveloping the rear gallery in fragrance. Odenwald notes, “Cool fall temperatures are heralded by the elusive but strong fragrance of the sweet olive’s blossoms.” The blooms appear in several cycles from October through spring. This Asian native is long-lived and slow-growing but mine in the last 10 years is quite large and needing to be cut back off the rear steps.



I have potted up 2 banana pups that may make it from NOLA.  They are hard to cut under the steps at Barracks. I have sufficient here and would take these to Wilmington if they make it or back to NOLA to use in a different location.



Wednesday 30 October



Back from ILM with some aspidistra which I have put out some trees to the north of the annex. The narcissus there are coming up. There had been rain in our absence and we are having some rain today. I am moving pots in for the temperature is to be in the 30’s for the next few days



The sweet olive continues; the sambac jasmine is in bloom even after loosing all its leaves this summer in a drought. The purple sasanquas are full; the lycoris fading.



We did do our Wednesday highway trash pick-up.



Tuesday 5 November



Only a slight burn on the bananas with the 34 degrees last Thursday night.



Joe clipped the front pastures and the barn pasture in the rear. I would have left them until spring but he does as he pleases even with my land. It looks nice but less grass left for the cattle this winter.



Burned the 2 piles near the potager. It still leaves some big pieces not gone. Picking up some sticks in the park to burn later.



Friday 8 November



Big freeze predicted next week when we are gone, so getting ready. High 40’s this am. Raking pine straw to mulch---crinums and as I go along some azaleas and camellias. I am also building wraps for the citrus. Old chicken wire holding the pine straw. An article in NOLA.com suggests mulch for satsumas. I am trying to do that at least up past the graft union with my 2 satsumas south of the well house and the pots of citrus on the patio which I have moved to the south facing wall which is the warmest spot. Also moved the oleander in pots to this warmer space. Will this be enough for next week when temperatures may be in low 20’s.



Last spring I made an effort to renew my citrus. I went down to Plaquamine Parish and purchased them where they grow them outdoors. I put the Satsuma in the ground and it has 3 oranges (will they freeze next wk?). My old poor Satsuma in a pot I put in the ground and felt like it was dying; it is now living and looks good, no fruit, however. I put limes and lemons in pots and a Kaffir lime has a fruit also. Will see if I can get them by the freeze predicted next week. I would cover if I were here; a problem as we travel often and often at the wrong time. I have all the pots, including the old plants that have survived (some with fruit) near the south facing wall and am mulching as best I can. Global warming is not here in southern Mississippi but climate change may be. We are at the upper limit of trying to grow citrus. This upcoming early deep freeze will test my plants and it comes suddenly with limited acclimation to the cold.



Now back to that article on Satsumas: They were named by the wife of General Van Valkenberg, US Minister to Japan who sent trees from Kyishu Island. (Date not given, but my citrus book lists 1878. It also notes that they were named after the Satsuma  [now Kagoshima] Prefecture in western Japan.) The first recorded Satsumas in the US were grown in Florida in 1876. They are native to China and Japan. The most cold hardy of the citrus. Known initially as the Satsuma Mandarin, there are a hundred kinds. Those recommended for Louisiana are Armstrong, LA early, early St. Ann, Browns Select, Owari, Kimbrough, listed in order of earliness. I have the Owari.



Satsumas are the most cold tolerant of all citrus (known to survive 12º F). They are usually treated as a separate species (Citrus unshiu) but recent research suggests that they are descended from a Chinese mandarin (C. reticulata). Owari is by far the most widespread Satsuma cultivar.[2]



Got an email from Lance Hill about covering the mirliton. He cuts back, mulches, and covers with an old carpet. He also mentioned that harvests this year bad due to drought. My vine died way back and I had not a one. There is a new sprout coming out from root but a bit late.  I have piled mulch high.



Cutting some zinnias for the house. My red ones finally bloomed.



Also I have 2 japanicas blooming. An un-named early peony flowered pink and the Woodville red north of the house. The Woodville red is a nice bloom, peony form but not red---pink. I have cut both for the house to keep from the cold.



The white sasanquas are starting on the lower drive.



Saturday 9 November



A light frost this am. 33 on the porch. Well house roof white.



Putting out more pinestraw and ran into a fall daffodil, Sternbergia lutea. Ogden says it blooms with September rains but I see this bloom in mid November. The name commemorates Count Caspar Sternberg (1761-1838) an accomplished German botanist. Parkinson’s Paradisus and Hortus Floridus (1615) identifies these bulbs as autumn daffodils. Some contend that it is the biblical lily of the field. It is a common wildflower in the Levant. It is also called Mt. Etna lily and yellow autumn crocus. There is a tradition that Thomas Jefferson was the first to import Sternbergia.

---

[1] Roses in the Southern Garden, G. Michael Shoup.

[2] The book is Growing Citrus by Martin Page.