Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day January 2014

About time I started blogging again and what better way to return than another 15th of the month Garden Blogger's Blooms Day.

It's bleak midwinter here in Plymouth.  Cool, wet and, occasionally icy.  No snow but we'll probably get some before winter's passage.  I just hope it doesn't go on as long as last year.

So, very little in flower, but what there is is interesting.  Starting with my Camellia sasanqua on the shed wall:

Camellia sasanqua combined with Clematis cirrhosa 'Freckles' on the shed wall

It's flowered well this winter, starting in late November, peaking in December and with buds still opening.  Intertwined is Clematis cirrhosa 'Freckles'.  This photo was actually taken late last year but the effect is still the same.  Oddly, none of my other camellias are showing anything but tight buds.  Maybe they know something about the coming weather that I don't.

Meanwhile, on the windowsill in Maria's workroom - she and the younger daughter make custom designed jewellery (https://www.facebook.com/chainmailled ) - Alocasia x calidora, a large leaved arum that I use for exotic interest in the summer garden, flowered to produce a pair of typical arum spathes.  This has lasted till today.

Alocasia x calidora flower spathe

Iris unguicularis  has been flowering on and off for a few weeks now.  The clump usually looks very untidy by this time of year - I needed to strip it before I could get a shot - but the flowers are fresh and bright and a welcome mid winter sight.

Iris unguicularis

Finally, winter jasmine, Jasminium nudiflorum, is still bravely putting on a winter show under the living room window.  I think it's probably hardier than I am.

Winter jasmine, Jasminium nudiflorum

As always, click the pictures to embiggen.

As ever, my thanks to May Dreams Gardens for hosting the Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day meme.  Head over there to see what's flowering in many more gardens round the world. 

PS

Sorry about the visible watermarks.

/Rant begins

It has been necessary due to the continued theft of images by large, commercial, for profit, websites who steal without payment or credit and then expect to get away with their copyright infringement simply by taking the images down when contacted.  Unfortunately, that's no longer an option.  If you are a commercial business* you will be invoiced at the exactly the same rate as if you had licensed any of my images currently available through Alamy.  Plus damages.  Plus my lawyer's fees.  Plus expenses.

Which all sounds very threatening.  It's meant to be.  Sorry, but stealing my images to increase your profits means you have lost the right to negotiate on price - and, trust me, it's far cheaper to settle quickly before my lawyers get involved.  And, whatever you do, don't strip the metadata or remove my copyright notice.  I could end up owning your whole company.

Rant over/

*Hobbyist, enthusiast bloggers are not businesses.  Just ask for permission.  Tiny, specialist nurseries deserve every support they can get and will always get highly preferential rates.  In fact, if there are any in Devon or Cornwall who would be interested in exchanging photographic access to the nursery for high quality images for use in your advertising please let me know on johnrichmond100@gmail.com.

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day November 2012

Another 15th of the month and another blog entry in the Garden Bloggers' Bloom day series.  It being mid November at 50degrees north there aren't a lot of flowers around in the garden.  But there are a few, some holdovers from summer, some flowering for the first time this year and in their season.

Newly in flower since last month is a quintet of plants that rarely disappoint at this time of year.  Jasminium nudiflorum, the yellow flowered Winter jasmine offers bright colour just as everything else seems to fade.  Last year it flowered early.  This year it's back to a more normal sequence, beginning at the start of November.  It's a lax shrub, usually grown against a wall and tied into a support - the way I grow it - but it can also be used as a low, ground covering scrambler.  I still remember a visit to the old cliff gardens in Torquay one winter's day in the early 80's when this plant spread a yellow carpet across and down large areas of the garden.

Jasminium nudiflorum

A true climber, Clematis cirrhosa 'Freckles' can flower intermittently for most of the year but really starts to get into its stride as the days shorten.  I've mentioned this one before, hardly surprisingly as it does have such a long period, but its worth noting that its the only Clematis that I have no difficulty with.  I've grown a fair few over the years and they've all succumbed.  It may be my acid soil or, more likely, my rapacious gastropods but they do not prosper here.

Clematis cirrhosa 'Freckles'

Fatsia japonica I grow as a large leaved, exotic looking shrub, not for its flowers.  But you can't miss them in November.  Pompom heads of pure white flowers that open to provide an abundant nectar source at a time of year when little else is in flower.  Even though the weather is getting colder there are still flies, hoverflies and even the odd red admiral butterfly on the wing during the warmer days and this - and the closely related ivy - provide sustenance.

Fatsia japonica flower heads

My fourth newcomer is more exotic.  Hedychium greenii, the most tropical looking of the relatively hardy ginger lilies.  Upright pseudostems with glossy green, maroon backed leaves would be worth a place in the garden even it never flowered.  Some years it doesn't, leaving bud formation so late that they're caught by frost before they open.  This year looks a bit less dodgy.  I've a few stems with buds ready to pop and no frost forecast for a week.  Having said that I wasn't even sure if I should include it as the first bud was due to open this morning but got eaten.  No matter, here's a shot from warmer years.

Hedychium greenii

Final flower amongst the new sprung winter set is Rosemary, Rosemarinus officianalis.  We have a plant outside the back door so I can pick fresh growth for cooking.  It's old, straggly - and flowers on and off through the winter.  Individually, the flowers are quite fascinating, but very small.  The shot below was taken at 1:1 (life size on the sensor) macro ratio and even two flowers don't quite fill the frame.  If you look closely there is even a little springtail insect on the right hand flower.

Rosemary in flower

I still have many of the earlier, summer flowers producing a display.  Passiflora caerulea is twining up the now leafless cherry, Abutilons 'Waltz' and 'Patrick Synge' continue to throw out their dangling bells, my fuchsias won't stop flowering till frost hits, Hydrangea 'Mme Emile Mouillere' is still producing white mopheads on the newest growth, and I've a couple of pelargoniums and petunias bravely defying the ever cooling nights to add a little colour.  But winter is fast approaching and their flowering days are numbered.  But in the meantime the true winter flowerers - my camellias, mahonia, Iris unguicularis, hellebores and others are showing signs that their display will brighten the darker days.  But more of that in December's Garden Bloggers Blooms Day.

As always, my thanks to May Dreams Gardens for hosting the Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day meme.  Head over there to see what's flowering in many more gardens round the world.