Your Neck of the Woods 2015 Part 3

We've come from here:http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1388076/#new

That Maypole Giraffe is too funny!

Much better today... yesterday was miserable, total body aches, sinus headache, waiting for antibiotics to kick in for bronchitis... Nice to be able to get out and enjoy the day. Even if I'm not up for digging/planting I can move things around to where I want them to go.

Photo of wood poppy at the bottom of the previous thread reminded me... somebody had a double-flowered wood poppy offered for the swap... have to check who that was, so I can ask for one!

For those who have been missing the articles... we've been discussing the issues in the writers' forum also, and somebody just posted there that you can go to the articles link (click the "guides & information" tab) to find them... they just aren't showing up on the home page at present.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/

I hope you feel better soon!

I've never seen a double wood poppy before.

critter, you can sneak a peek I think? at my latest in progress article about wood poppies.

For the rest of you. I have two wood poppies in my yard. Can share some doubles. These are the doubles. They are nonnative and do self sow.

Chelidonium majus celandine poppy Flore Pleno
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/69373/

Sally, I assume you're in Sequoia, and I'm pretty sure I can only see articles on my own "dashboard." :-(

oh well...

stupid insomnia

GO TO BED!!!

Or no truffles for you...

I was there! And I got up but all I found was ice cream and peanuts. Guess I've already been denied my truffles.

Have to mentally alphabetize my garden again instead of letting preschool songs loop endlessly in my brain.

Sally, I was going to do an insomnia wave, but then I realized this is a normal waking hour for some people. (Hi, Aspenhill!)

Hope all the insomniacs (myself included) get better sleep tonight!

The guy I carpooled with retired at the end of December, and I've been on my own for making the long commute since January. I've steadily been getting up later and later without the commitment of a specific time to meet up. Much better on sleep, but oh so much worse on the commute. I used to be up by 3:45 am and out the door by 4:15am. Now, I've gradually been sleeping in an extra 15 minutes at a stretch. Lately, I've been up by 6:00 am and out the door by 6:30am. A few days ago when it was raining, it took me 3 hours to get here and 2 hours to get home. Can't deal with that, so I'm starting to shift back to the 4:00am timeframe. Ughhh either way...

What a horrible commute what a lovely home.

So our Neck of the Woods has changed for a few weeks. We get up in the morning and sit on the front porch to have our coffee and enjoy the beautiful morning. Heavily scented by the lovely Jasmine gracing the front porch.

Holly, that jasmine isn't hardy in our neck of the woods is it? It would be wonderful to have that fragrance to wake up to.

No, I sure wish it would be. Isn't it a beauty? Nice aloe blooming as well. We all went out to a local nursery this morning Ric and I bought a beautiful orange hibiscus and a fern. Sure we will pick up a few more before we head home.

Goodness, Aspenhill, 5 hours in the car! You could have drive to NYC!

That jasmine is beautiful.

What a glorious day! While working in the yard I saw several butterflies, including a Gray Hairstreak and this Zebra Swallowtail. The swallowtail landed less than 4 feet from where I was working to drink moisture where I had watered earlier. After a couple of minutes it was still there so I went a got my camera, but assumed it would leave when I returned. Surprise! It sat around and let me take a number of shots, then unhurriedly flitted away.

wow Terri, what a commute, but yes, your wonderful home, it is a great reward for it.

yum Holly!

beautiful butterfly greeenthumb.

I had this morning, and will have all day tomorrow, in the yard if I want. I was watching and listening to some small birds but of course, the 'noculars were inside so no chance to see enough detail. Tomorrow, when I have the Binos handy, the birds will not appear.

David--I have NEVER seen the Zebra Butterfly! So beautiful!

Sally--You should come here to listen to birds....There are so many.
I do not know them by their sounds/songs.
I DO know that when I hear something like an upset chicken --
it is the red-bellied Woodpecker that seems to hang around here
in my big maple. I have tried to see if it had a nest somewhere--but
I do not know what to look for.

I think I also hear a wren, having heard it before when one had a nest in
my BIG pot in the middle of my WS bed.

NO Mockingbirds so far. Saw one last year after years of not hearing one.
G.

an upset chicken, too funny.

A house wren has started singing here. They can be bad to bluebirds (take out eggs) but I like their loud twittery song.

Hm, day off is starting out very wet....

Yesterday turned out to be a delightful summer day in April. Assisted at the Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy's Spring Native Plant sale as an "ASK ME" person assigned to Watermark Woods Nursery (Julie) . Six hours standing around in the sun became pretty tiring, but in addition to getting to visit some with Julie, other MA members Muddy, Aspenhill & Ecnalg all came by. Aspenhill, who swore she would not purchase anything, kept close to her intentions, acquiring only 4 plants, bravely leaving a crying void in the back of her SUV for dozens more.

I will be heading into Leesburg shortly to work the morning shift at the Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy booth at the Flower & Garden show and hope to see folks I know there too.

I know of no better to be ASK Me person for wildlife and native plants!!
I hope you get a chair and umbrella sometimes though!

I will bring Stylophorum diphyllum for Julie sometime.

I went over to a co workers house after work yesterday AKA new gardening victim. There's 'some' work to be done. She'll start with redoing four deck rail planters with new soil and doing some herbs and lettuce. And she's ready to buy some sort of compost bin.

It's about all I can do to NOT go over with my tools and spend days in her yard. There is a good corner for some extra daylilies I have, and volunteer butterfly bush sounded good to her also. Oh yeah I can share Rudbeckia galore, Autumn Joy sedum for a great reliable no fuss plant that butterflies love in fall...aside from these I think she'd really get a boost from annuals for all summer color. Existing are a couple very mature Azalea, unknown Rose (may turn out to be multiflora) some tall Lilies..that's about it..

All three vendors had very tempting offerings and Terri came away with some winners. The most unusual find (unpurchased, sad to say) was Dwarf Dog Hobble (leucothe fontanesiena "Scarlotta"). Sorry we didn't run into Muddy and see what she found. It was very well attended.

That sounds like a fun event, greenthumb! I'm impressed with Aspenhill's self restraint. :)

Sally, does your coworker need more perennials to fill her garden? Will she be attending the swap?

Sally--

My DD has now dug up 8 clumps of mostly Frans hals DL's.
I am hoping some people hee will ask for them--as I myself do not need any more.
I have quite thew stand already in my YUK bed.
Maybe your friend would like them? They are very pretty!

Photo not from my garden....

ooops--where did my picture go? This one IS from my garden.

How to say this kindly? Garden maintenance seems not to be my friend's main interest, and the lot is very small, with a dog. So it cannot be extensive, not looking for any more perennials. If I unload any DL on her, they will be my own overflow LOL

You guys know me too well! Yes, I did manage self restraint at the native plant sale LOL. I got a calycanthus (Carolina allspice) and a fothergilla - both things that have been on "my list" for a while. I also got a viburnum. One reason I needed to hold back was the vision of two boxes of bare root plants from ADR sitting in my garage. I was planting most of today and still only got half of them done. Why oh why do I make so much work for myself???

Aspenhill, there are addictions that are not healthy, at least ours is good for us.

I exercised lots of restraint! I saw lots of shrubs and groundcover I wanted, but only bought 3 each Penstemon digitalis (White Beardtongue), Aruncus dioicus (White Goat's Beard), Carex pensylvanica (Oak Sedge) and Carex brevior (Plains Oval Sedge).

I actually planted the Penstemon in the spot for which I bought them, and got one of the Goat's Beards planted in a spot that was sorely in need of filling up.

Sally, I have a friend equally uninterested in gardening, and she's buying a house in which there are a fair number of plants, some of which I didn't recognize. Her initial thought was to hire someone to come cut everything back, but I think I talked her into letting me and another gardening friend look at everything first.

Ric and I did a little exploring today traveled over to the Deland area about a 1/2 hour or so drive inland. We went to visit Barbersville Roadside it has a lot of the Mexican pottery that I like. The pottery is pretty pricey and I just couldn't find anything that I liked enough to fork over the BIG $$. From there we visited a couple of State Parks and Lake Woodruff National Wildlife Refuge we had a great time there bird watching and enjoying the 3 mile hike around some smaller mash areas and down one side of the very large lake. I posted the bird pics over in the Birding thread but thought I would post a few of the area. We hiked thru, as we first arrived at the Refuge there were Cypress Swaps on either side of the road just beautiful, there were a lot of small ponds and canals with a wide mowed trail (wide enough to drive on) that treked all over the area. We picked the smaller 3 mile trek that would take us to the Observation Tower at one side of the very very large lake. We found MayPops (passionflower) growing along the trail at one spot and several huge live oaks. Just about the time we got to the Observation Tower it started to rain pretty hard but we didn't get very wet. Pics are all out of sequence but you can pretty much tell what is what.

Yesterday we moved from Poppy's house over here to Daytona Beach. On the way over we stopped at Harry P. Leu Gardens. A lovely garden and walked around that for a few hours. I have a ton of pictures from there but they will have to wait for another day. As we traveled across Fl. from the Gulf Coast to the Atlantic Coast we kept seeing these fields of Pickerel growing wild. Just large fields of purple blooms. Also this is one of the plants we picked at a nursery near Poppy's house. Beautiful Hibiscus.

that sounds fun Muddy I hope you can, and maybe come away with special cuttings e
Lovely tour, Holly!

I've been awake listening to steady rain for over an hour.

About that crying void in aspenhill's SUV, I can only imagine.. only imagine,.cuz I have only seen it packed to the rafters!

If there are crying voids in your garden that you'd like to fill with CALADIUMS from Bill, please go here: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1391845/#new

:-)

Holly, thanks for sharing your photos; they bring back memories! I would love to see Passionflower growing in the wild - growing in my backyard would be even better.

Does anyone happen to know off the top of their head what this shrub is? It's the only photo my friend sent of a shrub in bloom; she took it within the last 2 weeks. At first I thought it was Flowering Quince, but the leaves are too shiny.

I think it looks a lot like a camellia, Muddy.

Thanks, I never would have guessed that. I don't even try to grow camellias.

I'll go further and guess that it could be 'Yuletide', a widely grown variety of Camellia sasanqua with single red blooms.

My landlady in GA had a remarkable collection of camellias under the live oaks in her yard. Most of the camellias were from cuttings she had started decades ago, and each had its own story. I miss Mama Jean!

Is she around here, Muddy? I thought our winters were too cold for most varieties. My folks, who are down in the Northern Neck, had a couple of beautiful camellia shrubs in their yard, and even those sometimes suffered when it got particularly cold. Theirs were the doubles.