Jack's Frost

28 Aug '07 9:30 pm

....your photos worked on me, like the morning sunrays, passing through the tree-tender-foliage in an early Spring misty morning.....In the La Hulpe Forests....Thank you!

By the ....colourful and joyful way: I adored the bright blue Rosemaries! I think they are exceptionally beautiful!

29 Aug '07 3:32 am

Oh Jack, your wonderful pictures are always such a feast for me, a seasonless tropical gardener! Wink

What a marvelous treat to see your handsome winter chameleon, followed by your wintery pictures and late winter flowering colors with those lovely buds waiting to burst forth and spring soon to follow with those colorful lovelies for starters! Many thanks for sharing! Very Happy

29 Aug '07 5:43 pm

Hi, Jack!

Your latest batch of pictures made me ache for late winter!! The misty weather and new leaves emerging from dormant bushes, not to mention the many early flowers that I've never heard of!! I didn't know that there was a buddleja that bloomed so early - does it smell the same as the ones that bloom in late summer? I loved the picture of the "weed" and of the azalea with the raindrops on it! Oddly, azaleas don't seem to like my place, even though everyone around grows them with no effort at all! The only one I have that has ever bloomed is in a pot!

Loved the picture of the charge of the curly-tailed puppies!! So happy just to be alive!!

I'm waiting to get some good mushroom pictures from the bush to show you; should be soon!!!

Cheers!

gordonf

30 Aug '07 2:38 am

Thank you all for your comments and wishes. This buddleja, Gordon, is even more honey-scented than B. davidii, even if the flowers are never as spectacular. Their scent, suddenly hitting one on a warm day after winter (often in mid-August if the weather is mild) is quite intoxicating Razz

There is another which flowers even earlier, by my mom's birthday in early July in a good year, which is also endemic. However it has taken a severe knock in the last two cold winters and I fear we might even have lost it down at the level of the garden. It has not flowered for me since July '05, a particularly mild winter.

Before I have the chance to post again, Spring Day - 1 September - will have come and gone. And so as a farewell to the tawny taupey months, and to 'Jack's Frost', I post one final winter pic, taken this last weekend...

30 Aug '07 3:54 am

Thanks Jack for posting this one last pic of winter. So dreamy. We will miss you for the coming days, but hope you are having a nice break.

30 Aug '07 6:15 am

Thanks, Jack, for the info. Now I'll have to begin researching the plant to see whether it's available here (and if it would be hardy here!). Loved your "Ode to Winter"!

Cheers!

gordonf

30 Aug '07 4:10 pm

Stolen moments at Moosey's when what should I spy but the motherload of incredible photos from Jack. Not just your last shot of Winter but the batch before. I love that shot looking up the lane toward the house. Looks like an Agave attenuatum infront of the house along with a very generous camelia. You have sequoia's? Wow. Now that takes a little bit of real estate. The charge of the curly tailed puppies put a smile on my face. Your Graham S. Thomas is enormous. Does it fill it out well? Mine does not. The photo of the bird cherry drooping over the water is very artsy. What in the world are beer pots? Is that a local artifact? Looks great in an asian influence setting. Heck, they just look great.

Well, I'm on stolen time. Just finished the first day of classes followed by the manditory two hour meeting, followed by a couple of hours of tinkering on the course, followed by a quick meal and a game of cards with Lia, followed by the short walk with Lia and the dogs at the dog park on the bay .. and I ought to call it a night.

Looking forward to a very early (for me) spring in your posts,

Mark

30 Aug '07 5:12 pm

Hi, Jack (whenever you get back to the computer!);

Well, I guess you were right about the little cactus that I asked for help in identifying! I was so sure that it wasn't a Euphorbia, but the little thing's sprouted LEAVES!! I don't think any true cactus ever does that, so it must be a Euphorbia!! Here are some pictures to show you.

Cheers and thanks!

gordonf

30 Aug '07 8:30 pm

Like Mark I ought to be slaving away, not be on the forum, but I thought I'd QUICKLY check for responses... Thank you all for all the kind words...

Good luck for the year, Mark! The sequoias were propogated by my dad from cuttings in the 80s - we have 20 odd planted in the 30s which give their name to our farm, and about 16 he grew from cuttings, including the ones along the entrance drive. Both my house and my parents' contains sequoia panelling from trees felled on the farm.

The 'agave' is in fact Aloe marlothii, one of the two most beautiful large South African aloes. (Both of which feature in the picture mentioned below, no 17. It grows abundantly some 20km (12 miles) from here. Wrecked by the cold this year, but it flowered magnificently in 2005.

See the post http://forums.mooseyscountrygarden.com/garden849.html (18 July)

I posted some pics there, including one taken on the farm; that pic (no. 17)includes A. ferox on the left, A morlothii right, A.arborescens in the background and just visible on the right, some yellow and orange kniphofia flowers.

Gordon: nip off the tip of a leaf. If it is milky, then it is for sure a euphorbia! As for Buddleja salvifolia: even here in its natural habitat it is no great beauty, and I've photographed a particularly fine and floriferous speciman in very kind light. An open jar of good honey placed above a tea-candle on your deck, or even a honey-scented candle, will do the trick much more cheaply and compactly, not to mention sooner, for you!

31 Aug '07 5:08 pm

Hi Jack!

It's late at night here (well, it seems late, anyway, as it's now been dark for some time already, and I'm still used to light at 10:00 or later!), so I'll wait until tomorrow to nip off a leaf of the "Euphorbia". But thanks for the info, about it and about the buddleja - I guess I won't go to the trouble of researching it after all! Very Happy

I dug up some bulbs today to get ready to transplant them, and I couldn't believe the size of them!! Among the daffodils, which was what I was looking for, were some 2-inch diameter, very white bulbs that looked rather like onions. The only thing that I remember being in that part of the garden was a type of bluebell, but I wouldn't have dreamed that they had such large bulbs! I think I'll take one to a local garden centre to see if they recognize it.

I also found some ripe seeds in the only seed pod on my hardy gloxinias, which bloomed for the second time this year. So, of course, I planted them in a little pot to sit out the winter in a sheltered spot outdoors. We'll see if any germinate!

Tomorrow I must get on with potting up some little rose seedlings that I planted last fall from wild seeds collected on one of my dog walks. I think at least a dozen germinated, and now they're jammed together in a 4" pot! I plan to give some away and keep one ot two to grow in pots to decorate the deck in winter, as they have tiny but very bright red hips. In summer, I'll just place the pots in an out-of-the-way spot in the garden (on the roof, perhaps?? Rolling Eyes

) and bring them to the deck for spring bloom time and then again in autumn.

Tomorrow I must also plant a very dark purple lily that a friend gave me the other day. I think I'll try reproducing it with bulb scales, as I just received my new B.B.C Gardening Guide magazine today and it has an article on how to do it. It should be a pleasant experiment!

Good luck at school, all you who must still go and serve Very Happy

!

Cheers!

gordonf

Jack's Frost

My dear, good Jack,....

More Pictures, More Envy!!

Goodbye to winter

Ode to Winter

Buddleja

Oh my

Euphorbias

Last words...

Of Euphorbias & Buddlejas