This post is going to be quick and dirty. The purpose will mostly be to serve as documentation for myself as to what was flowering on November 12, 2020. Images included do not represent the entire yard, but I’m in the middle of a large photo editing project, so I must be brief.
I wasn’t supposed to be outside. Honestly, I was cleaning up the kitchen after baking a loaf of bread, when I was distracted by several yellow sulphur butterflies around one of my shrimp plants.
And there I was. Standing in the garden. Cell ph in hand. The butterflies were too fast for me. Normally, I can’t view shrimp plant from the kitchen, however, these plants were potted. I took cuttings to propagate a bunch of plants in the early summer.
Not wanting to get back to my sink of dishes too quickly, I snapped several shots of what was flowering around the rear patio garden. Camellia, featured above, with its lovely corsage-like stout blossom. I don’t know the variety, because these were already planted at our home when we moved here.
The same goes for this lovely azalea. I am thankful to the person who planted them for us to enjoy. But the variety, not sure. I’m not that picky about varieties. I try to keep name tags and write notes of what I add to the garden. If I lose a tag? Well, I’m not going to beat myself up trying to id it.
Fragrant tea olive. Well, that’s a story I’ve told here. When we moved to the home, we were ill advised, that a lovely shrub outside our garage was a nasty invasive. We got out the chainsaw and…well, cut it down. Turns out it was this lovely (not the one featured above), fragrant tea olive. The good news is it grew back from the stump, and I apologize every year as I pat it on the head. But, in the meanwhile, I planted a couple more. To ease my guilt. This is a fabulously fragrant flowering shrub.
For the first time ever, we had a banana flower. Above this flower, we have a nice cluster of bananas. I’m not sure when to pick them. But I guess you’d say only one of the flower clusters was pollinated on this long stem, because each time a new flower opens, the individual flowers fall, and well, no bananas.
If you want to call anything a “butterfly” this or that, it ought to look like it, eh? I present my blue butterfly shrub. It has undergone a scientific name change (not by my hands) and is currently listed as Rotheca myricoides ‘Ugandense’. I’ll try to remember this by singing U GAN DENSE if you want to, like a little blue butterfly.
Continuing with the “butterfly” theme, we move along to butterfly ginger. These are waning, and I am probably seeing my last few flowers opening this week. I have been transplanting the “escaped” ones and starting new beds.
A few flower heads are left on my hydrangeas. I didn’t manage to cut and dry any this year. In spring I found several “self-rooted” plant stems at the base, gave them a good whack with my trowel, and planted them in other sections of the yard. I love free plants.
I have several of these begonias. They have overwintered pretty well for three years; however, this year they didn’t grow to half the size they have before. Maybe I didn’t love them as much as they wanted- as it evident by the “weeds”.
This little rose that was gifted to me about 9 years ago is a pretty tough cookie. It goes through cycles, but for the most part, it blooms nearly year-round.
I added a small pot of pineapple sage (Salvia elegans) to my garden last year, in a raised bed. Last year it grew to 4′, after spring planting. This year it really struggled. In fact, it only started flowering in early October, but it is surely a champion out there right now. I’m not sure why, but it only grew to about 12″ this year. I need to use it in the kitchen! Note to self.
My habaneros are coming on strong. I’ve been overwintering most of my pepper plants. This particular plant is two years old. The mother plant was three years old. I have way too many pepper fruit now. I’d like to produce these for a local brewery to make up some batches of spicy chili beer. I give you peppers, you give me beer. There is only so much you can do at home with peppers exhibiting a heat such as habanero, ghost, scotch bonnet, etc. And I have cayenne peppers coming out my ears. I bottle up a “hot sauce”, dry them. Use them fresh in salsa and various other recipes. I tried adding them to bird seed to piss off the squirrels. No such luck. On occasion I’m lucky to find my husband has made me a spicy pepper margarita. Cheers!
I don’t think I’m going to edit this post. I’m tired. My back hurts. My shoulder pain in returning which flares from typing. I’m working on some stuff, so I haven’t had much time to do any blog posting. However, the bill just arrived to renew my domain name on wordpress, so…….here I am.
Yours in Gardening,
The Garden Maiden
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The Garden Maiden 