I'm with you on Edgeworthia, Claire. My papyrifera from CamForest is getting ready to put on a show. Not much blooming - surprisingly, a pink obedient plant of all things! Gettting into bud are Edgeworthia, witch hazel, wintersweet, and prunus mume. I think my pinky toes have frostbite from putting in a camellia this morning. Arum and cyclamen foliage are nice little bright spots.

Brenda, do your camellias blooms stand up to the freeze. I bought a Snow Flurry out of CamForest's open greenhouse and the minute I put it outside, those gorgeous white blooms turned dark (like Bradford Pear when we get a spring freeze).

I want to invest in a large #CF23 from them, but I'm afraid the same thing will happen.

I think Edgeworthia might need a few years before it gets impressive, but for that look, I'm willing to wait.

Claire, My camellias don't seem to burn, but I don't have any white and DH just surprised me with an Autumn Moon, so I guess I'll find out. HAve you noticed that white flowers in general seem to have a tendency to get brown edges with frost? - I'm thinking of star magnolias and those dastardly late spring frosts. Maybe the other colors do the same thing and it's just not as noticeable. What is CF23?

CF23 (like R2D2!) is Camellia Forest's name for a camellia that blew me away when I saw it. They only have them in the $100 and $60 size. They are a white and pink ruffled single with a large flat yellow stamen. MY/Our GW friend Marsha told them they should name it "Claire's Fancy" because I got the "vapors" when I laid eyes on it. It may be a japonica/sasanqua hybrid, as are so many of their fall bloomers.

I dunno, my gorgeous double pink camellia hedge along the porch, burns pretty badly too as soon as there is a freeze.
Maybe we need to discuss this further with CF. (all the research there over the years was about cold hardiness, I understand) Snow Flurry is supposed to be one of their favorites. But, it's an early fall bloomer, so maybe having been greenhouse grown/protected is a big factor.

My Cam's get bit pretty bad - but when I see others around town they seem to recover and set more buds. So I will not give up. I have the perfect yard for Camellias and want one every ten feet.

I have Edgewarthia chrysantha but not the large leafed form that PDN sells (on my wish list). These guys are a relative of Daphne and bloom around Valentines day. Smell like Hawaii, great for reminding you that spring is on the way. They can be a little picky about placement, don't recall what the demands are but the big one at PDN is on a mound beside a pool and it is lovely at any time of year.

The last of my Climbing Aster's flowers fell off the other day (Aster caroliniana I believe). I still have some perennial mums in bloom tho they are starting to fade - look like stubby white daisies. My species Cyclamen are in flower and cute as bugs. Haven't seen my Arum italicum this year but it is still early. Likewise with the Hellebores. All the Daphne odora are covered in buds as are some of the Calycanthus 'Athens Gold'. The Camellia sinensis 'Tea Plant' is done blooming and looks happy (may make some tea this spring with the new buds). Nothing happening with the Fothergilla 'Mt Airy'. I can't remember if I planted a Witch Hazel or not - I know I want some....

there's a few things happening in my yard ... i was just noticing the oak leaf hydrangea's huge purple leaves, and the hydrangea paniculata tardiva's long, late-summer/fall blooms are still intact and providing a bit of interest. there's quite a lot of green out there - evergreen candytuft, irises, the evergreen & semi-evergreen daylilies, green-and-gold still looking great, forget-me-nots, christmas ferns, sweet woodruff, the foliage of the shasta daisey "becky" is remarkably perky, spotted deadnettle continues to bloom, and the homestead purple verbenas are still large mounds of green ... there's a new bloom on the carolina phlox, amazingly enough. thank goodness, however, for the arborvitae, juniper parsoni & sea green, the native hollies, the nandina domestica, the azaleas, and of course, the star of the season in my yard - the camellias.

the sasanqua "shishigashira" has been blooming for a month, and shows no sign of letting up - still full of buds. the cold does not seem to effect the buds or the blooms whatsoever. the "snow flurry" i was instantly enamoured with in CF's greenhouse has many buds remaining that appear, so far, oblivious to the freezing temps. today's the day for planting the CF beauties i chose: "snow flurry", "sparkling burgundy", c. transnokoensis, and "crimson candles" ... our recent CF visit was all about "winter landscape" - in addition to the camellias, the astonishing edgeworthia (chrysantha & papyrifera), danae racemosa, camellia sinensis & mahonia media will now grace my winter landscape. had i only been able to fit prunus mume in my car that day :)

john, my fothergilla "mt airy" pops around late march in my yard.

merry winter landscape to all!
marsha

I guess I seriously need to do something to perk up my winter landscape. For the most part it is just yuck, yuck, double yuck. I don't even clean things up until spring. But I *hate* winter and I almost never go outside when the temp is below 60, so I wouldn't be out there to enjoy an attractive winter landscape anyway. Give me 95 degrees any day. I may complain it's too hot, but I don't really mean it. I've been threatening to move to Florida for years now. But I also don't like to have my cheese moved, so I suppose I'm stuck with winter.
Dana

Things are finally pertty dreary around here. They were surprisingly green until early last week when it finally got consistently in the high-30's here at night.
The only things still going (to different levels) are:
- sweet alyssum (this is supposed to be an annual!),
- bougenvillia (no blooms, but still green) which is in a pot on the East side of the house,
- green-eyed echinacea, which loves these temps, it's well over doubled in size since the Fall started,
- the asparagus fern I have in my pond garden shows no sign of stress
- the fennel and this isn't necessarily a good thing - it's starting to take over the herb garden and
- citronella geraniums surprisingly enough. They're in pots against the North side of my greenhouse. They hated the heat of summer, so I'm very happy to see them doing so well.
Marsha,
I looked up Fothergilla 'Mt Airy' after your comment. My husband is from Mt. Airy. Very cool! I know these grow around here and if I amend my soil enough, it should do well in the new garden I'm planning (the one my husband does NOT know about yet! :) ).
Barb

My dianthus 'sweet william' is still blooming pretty strong.

Marsha and john, your yards are on the way to winter wonderlands...soon you may also BOTH have chickens (BTW,it's ok to talk about cluckers here!)

Dana, I'm with you, I am so dreaming about the days when the sweat was dripping from my brow and as I pranced about in flipflops warding off the copperheads...listening to NPR...I was so better informed during the summer. Now I'm up to my eyeballs in cooking shows and tabloid news.

BTW, Brenda, I asked about your Villes De Nantes at CF and Mr. Parks just shook his head. The search and the saga go on! Maybe you'd like Crimson Candles, which is supposed to be covered in red blooms during the winter. Might not 'hold a candle' to the fimbriating striped VdeN, but might tide you over.

peace, claire in sanford

I'm just thrilled that I found a couple dozen dill seedlings in the veggie garden! And I am eating parsley with everything since it is still putting out fresh new stalks. Found lots of praying mantis egg cases on a variety of plants. Hope every one survives.

My deep rose camellia's are tardy, the other two iced pink ones bloomed before Thanksgiving. I found lots of bud swelling on the thornless blackberries and hydrangea. Cotoneasters have nice red berries as does one of my Viburnums. The 'Fire Twig' dogwood branches are really glowing and the new little Heucheras 'Peach Melba' and 'Amber Waves' are unusual colors that perk up the dull front entry shade garden. I have buds, still, on my 3' tall so called "miniature" yellow rose - hips too!

I have a good crop of bright green Oxalis (ugh!) that I am pulling up today and am enjoying the rather good weather without wind in the garden. Hands feel good dirty.

I'm perusing the seed and bulb catalogs for my winter garden entertainment otherwise. Life is good, even without flowers.

Nancy-dear the nancedar

It's Christmas Eve so I feel like indulging the forum with another story -

When I was a child I remember a year when I learned what a praying mantis' egg case looked like (then as now, I was a big bug fan). At some point I had roamed the neighborhood and gathered up every single egg case I could find, and as I was kid, you know I found them all. I don't remember why I put them in my dresser drawer but I do remember that they just about filled it.. I must have meant to do something with them later but being a kid I went about my merry way and totally forgot what I had done. Well round about April I raced home from school one sunny warm day to find my mother standing at the front door obviously waiting for me and obviously flustered.

She marched me into the bedroom I shared with my brothers and pointed to the wall, the wall by the dresser, the wall that appeared to undulate, shrinking and swelling with wave upon wave of tiny baby insects that had made it all the way to the ceiling en masse. Each one a micro replica of an adult, they were about the cutest creature a boy could ever want for a pet and I had a gajillion of them right there in my room. I was one happy kid.

Mom was not so happy. As I stood by the wall watching my collection scamper around the room she told me to "take care of IT!" I thought for a while and tried to encourage them to the window after I had opened it but most of them were not cooperating. After an hour of futile efforts I screamed for help. The solution wasn't pretty - mom came to the doorway and handed me the vaccum cleaner. She tried real hard not to laugh when she bent to plug it in.

John, that's a very David Sedaris-y story. Except, HE was a Raleigh child who was famously fastidious about the housekeeping of HIS room, unlike some OK boys we know! His chain-smoking mom, as portrayed in his essays, was a real hoot too. She makes your mom seem closer to a June Cleaver.

Always been meaning to ask someone.... is the Ms. Sedaris who is a research assistant at PDN one of his sisters? Amy Sedaris, another sister, is a comedian and actress.

Yes, that's his sister Gretchen. I asked her once why she was only barely mentioned in his books (I have ALL of them) and she said she won't sign the release form. Not sure if that is the truth, she did seem annoyed with her brother airing the family laundry to the world. I don't have cable so I've never seen Amy work - but I hear she's a hoot.

if you substitute the words "praying mantis" with the word "caterpillar" i've a nearly-identical story, including the vacuum-cleaner ending. just a slight scenario difference: we came home from vacation vs arriving home from school :)

ho ho ho!

Don't tell me I have to get my sister's approval when I write MY dysfunctional saga! Good to know. Just kidding! For anyone who reads this, if you can, check out NPR today or online...they usually reprise Sedaris's lengthy, hilarious, but socially acerbic essay on working as an elf at Macey's. It's an American classic!

Marsha, I'm not sure which is more of a nightmare, a living ceiling of mantis or caterpillars. I regret the necessity of the ending of both your stories. Good thing it was before the day of bagless vacs! That kind of massacre of woodland friends might have marked you both for life.

i spent Christmas afternoon happily playing in the front yard--weeding, raking, and creating new flower beds by wetting down and then spreading newspapers over future beds and then covering them with pine straw. i also planted the last of the asiatic lilies that i had gotten on sale from van engelen and replanted daffodil bulbs that had been somehow pushed to the surface.

pat
durham NC

I have a lot of palms and bamboo growing in my garden so it stays green and tropical-looking all winter. Camellias and the various winter blooming herbs and bulbs provide some winter color.

These Galanthus start blooming by mid Dec and continue through most of Jan.
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This white double-flowered camellia blooms from Nov through Mar.
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The 6" diameter flowers of this red Camellia blooms Dec through Feb.
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These Helleborus orientalis bloom from Jan through Mar.
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The interior of a moso bamboo grove looks tropical year around and moso bamboo has leaves that remain a light "spring" green color through the year.
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And even when it does snow, a moso bamboo grove has its own unique beauty.
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Mike, the photos are beautiful. I especially love the bamboo in the snow. Who says Winter is dull?
Nancy

I actually kind of like my winter landscape this year. Around the house I have the skeletons of phlox "David" mixed with the olive green/purple of aromatic aster and the darker green of Phlox divarcata, toothwort and white wood aster.

The big perennial bed has a good winter structure for the first time (it's three years old), with the roses, butterfly bushes and grasses. Even the big stems of my fig tree, which grew at least 4 feet this year, has a sculptural quality. I especially like the dark green foliage and big red thorns of Mrs. BR Cant. The only blooms I have right now are some blue violets, but for the future I have a rooted cutting of wintersweet, and a couple of camellia seedlings and cuttings. Currently none of these are higher than 4 inches and I am just hoping they make it through the winter.

Mike, your winter landscape is a real winner! Lots of color and structural interest! Those white cammies don't brown out on ya? Your bamboo grove is lovely with the snow cupped by the stem joints...not a sight anyone often sees! Thanks so much for sharing those beautiful photos.

claire in sanford

The camellia flowers do get zapped whenever there is a hard frost, but there are plenty of additional buds waiting to open up and replace them.

Here's another bamboo that provides lots of structural interest in my winter garden.
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that moso bamboo is stunning, summer or winter.
great pics, thanks!
marsha

Okay Mike, what's the name of that "other" bamboo. Adele

Mike
I tried to look at the Exif data to see what digital you are using in your photos but none was available. Our garden is full of unraked leaves around a Koi pond. But underneath the leaves, succulents are thriving. A Norway Maple is the tree that has dropped the leaves. Spider lily patch has melted.

That "other" bamboo is Qiongzhuea tumidissinoda. Don't know anything about Exif data.

Mike the moso and the Qiongzhuea tumidissinoda have me intrigued again with bamboo. The first time was when you posted a while ago showing a walkway that had a very short and lovely bamboo bordering one side. Do you remember which bamboo I am speaking of and if so could you name that one again for me. I am making a list this time. Adele

The color that best describes my yard and the entire state of Oklahoma right now would be winter wheat. My lawn is that color and most of my gardens too. A few very hardy evergreen trees and shrubs, native junipers and my little pines are the only things green and the Nadinas have green and purple leaves with red berries. The Nandina Bambina is lovely with burgundy, golds, purples, yellows and scarlet. The ornamental grasses were lovely in the Fall, but now after hard freezes, extended periods of cold and 35-65 MPH winds, they look kinda puny. Their plumes beat to heck. The area around my Koi pond looks pretty good. I have lost some of my tea roses. I have a small patch of St. Augustine grass that I am babying along.

We are still in a severe drought. Clouds roll over the state everyday, raining and snowing in every state around us, but not here. But now Texas, Arkansas, Kansas, & Louisiana have also issued state wide Burn Bans. Deadly fires erupting everywhere and with extremely hig winds, it is really bad.

Fires are burning in every county surrounding the one I live in. The Burn bans issued state wide since September includes no Bar-B-Queing, and no Fireworks. They are still allowing the sell of fireworks, but it is against the law to shoot them off. Now how dumb is that????

The past week, several bad fires were started by fireworks. Still people are careless and foolish. My neighbor down the road has been shooting off rockets, Roman Candles and other really cool fireworks for the past several days. Winds are fierce again today. This morning I finally called our Volunteer Fire Dept and they told me to call the sheriff's office, so I did. Haven't heard another "pop" since. I hope that ends that.

It is pretty scarey. Something like 30 or more homes have burned in December alone, and about 70,000 acres have burned since September, and many of the fires burned to within a few miles from here.

Because of the drought and because of the emminent danger of wildfires, I am having to water every day to keep the yard damp. It isn't easy for me right now to drag a heavy garden hose all over this hill. I have to use with my walking stick. Major drag. . .

It is so dry that some water wells have gone dry around the state, including town wells. It is really bad. No rain on our forecast, either.

I wish you guys would post some photos of your winter yard scenes so I can see how it looks in the Carolinas in the winter, PLEASE???? From what you have named, sounds like you have a lot of pretty and interesting things you are still growing & enjoying in your gardens.

I am G-R-E-E-N with garden envy. (grin) ~Annie

Adele, if the very short and lovely bamboo was a white/green variegate, then it was Sasaella masamuniana albostriata, which gets about 3 feet high.

Right now in our garden - we have violas, pansies and dianthus blooming. A very light pink and a deep rose camellia are blooming. Rosemary has beautiful blue flowers - we still have some pink minatures roses in bloom and another rose is budded. The larkspur is feathering out all over the place and sweet peas are up about 4". We are still getting broccolli, spinach, lettuce and musclane from the veggie garden. The daphne is budded full as is a new virburnum that is also getting nibbled on by deer (%&*#&$^%@). Daffodils in a couple of places have broken through the surface and so have the grape hyacynths. I just love gardening in this part of the country because we can have something going on all year round. One area of my gardens is now sprouting various containers of wintersown perennials and annuals - I love it and it is so exciting to go out and see what new is happening. Inside the house I am devouring every written word on gardening - visiting a ton of GW forums and looking at pictures of others gardens - I get so inspired by what other 'ordinary' people do. Gardening in one form or another is never further than an armlength away.

The native Tipularia discolor, Cranesbill Orchid is leafing out with it red/green mottled leaf with red underside. It's a good thing, because I'm madly rescuing lots of the orchids from acreage being logged this week - I know there is bloodroot, solomon's seal, and uvularia there too, but can't see them this time of year - drat.

Miracles never cease to amaze me.

Monday evening I faced the western sky at dusk, and marveled at the beauty of the sunset. I lifted up my hands and said a little Cherokee prayer to God that if HE would, please send rain, a really good soaker rain, and then change it to snow.

Later that night, clouds rolled in and it started to rain - a good soaker rain and it rained and rained all night. In the morning, it changed to snow and I awoke to a beautiful winter wonderland. We got an inch and a half of snow!!!
I took lots of pictures, and within a few hours, it melted away as if it were never here.

Thank you dear Father for heading the prayers of your people!

Hope the weather in the Carolinas is fair and kind to all of you.

~ Annie in Okie