ruminate vb. to chew (the cud)
Well here we are twixt Christmas and a new year, again. I should reflect on the year just gone. . . . . . . . ., there, that's done. Perhaps some resolutions for next year? Nah, don't like the sound of that, let's go with good intentions rather than resolutions. One. Move the tunnel.…
Keeping a garden interesting gets more difficult as autumn slips into winter. The climate here is not warm enough to have nearly as wide a choice of material for winter display as for summer, nor is it cold enough to force me to shut up shop altogether. I have a choice, I can give up…
Last six of the year. Taking inspiration from Jane's king parrots last week I have been trying to take pictures of garden birds. We hang a couple of feeders of sunflower seeds out for them and mostly get flocks of goldfinches hoovering them up from dawn to dusk. I started taking pictures from the house, through…
Camellia 'Night Rider' possesses the sort of qualities that would lead one to expect it to be massively popular, yet it is but rarely seen. Raised in New Zealand by Os Blumhardt, its parents are C.'Ruby Bells' x C.'Kuro-tsubaki'. It first flowered in 1980. The flowers are dark red and the petals waxy textured.…
I paid a visit yesterday to the Camellia National Collection at Mount Edgcumbe in the hope that their autumn flowering camellias would be putting on a show. I was not disappointed. The autumn flowering camellias are often referred to as "the sasanquas" though some are forms of the species C. hiemalis, others hybrids. Many originate from…
I've had blooms on a number of camellias over the past couple of weeks, mostly on small, under cover, pot grown plants. First out was Camellia sasanqua 'Gay Sue'. This New Zealand raised variety is described in the Camellia Register as having 12 petals and cream anthers. All the blooms I have seen here are anemone…
