Magnolia and Sunshine
It was an early morning drive to Magnolia, but I saw a gorgeous sunrise. The Columbia County Master Gardeners outdid themselves with their annual Garden Thyme event. They had a packed house, and in addition to a great line up of seminars, they also aired a great review of their MG program as the crowd was gathering. This was the first year they had a trade show, and the County 76 folks were selling garden hoes, and there was pottery, subscriptions to Arkansas Gardener and a whole range of books, including mine and Chris Olsen’s. At the end, everyone went home with either a crape myrtle or a hardy palm, or both courtesy of Pittman’s Nursery. They gave Chris, John and I amaryllis plants. Mine is about to open.
Speaking of bulbs, driving down I saw quite a few daffodils in bloom. Around the church where the event was held, their tea olive (Osmanthus) was in bloom as were their sasanqua camellias. My sasanqua continues to bloom as well–in fact there are more flowers on it now than there have been all season. I am starting on month 3 of blooms! I got home and decided I needed to take inventory of my own garden. My daffodils are beginning to come up, but nowhere close to blooming, but my neighbor has some that are open. My crocus are up, but I don’t see any blooms yet. My Camellia japonica has four buds getting bigger, and the loropetalums in front and back are still blooming. If you look at the close up picture of the bloom, you can see where they get the common name Chinese witchhazel, as the pink bloom does look like a witchhazel bloom. My hellebores continue to shine in the winter landscape. The Josef Lemper flowers have all turned bright green now, but the Cinnamon Snow and Pink Frost are doing fantastic, with loads of buds. With just these three plants I have had tons of blooms. The mahonias are beginning to flower and they are so fragrant and attractive to bees and the rosemary is blooming too. My nemesis the Vinca major actually had a big showy flower already. I cut it and brought it indoors to enjoy. They do have pretty flowers, if they just didn’t spread so aggressively!
It was cool today, but the sunshine is wonderful. Get outside and enjoy this weather. There is plenty to do in the garden, from clean up to fertilizing to planting.
