Gold Hill Plant Farm Today (March 28, 2015)

                Most of the daffodils have passed now but the Narcissus are really glorious this year.

                           
                                        More Narcissus under the Dogwood that is trying to unfold.

                                                               The oaks are blooming.

You never know what surprise you may find! The rooster violets are blooming. They seem to prefer the worst soil and the very place you'd never figure anything could grow. I remember how they used to grow and bloom on a red bank at my Grandmother's house. I have tried them is more hospitable locations but they die out in a year or so.

This shrub is Exochorda or more familiarly, Pearlbush. It blooms earlier than the white spireas but is also a member of the rose family. It roots and grows easily, without special treatment. It hails from China and Central Asia. Occasionally you will see one blooming in abandoned places or the edge of woods. It may be that it reseeds, but not readily enough to be a pest.

Spring Beauty: a diminutive wild bulb plant that greets the first of spring with white faces smeared with a bit of pink rouge.

Every year the thrift around this rock takes a bigger place. I love its cheery fuchsia color, and talk about a plant that takes care of itself and does not mind living in poor soil! It's main requirement seems to be sun.

I can't count on a big beautiful display of tulips , but every year I have a few show up , even with smallish blooms. The main thing that seems to help them rebloom is fertilizer. It would be better if I could remember to fertilize in the fall, but by then they have disappeared underground and I can't find them.

Spring!!

                                         The persistence of daffodils without care is well known.


Click here to read or hear a cheerful poem about spring!

It May Be Chilly Today...

These are from my yard yesterday. Spring will soon be spronging out everywhere!

                                  Sweet smelling Edgeworthia  chrysantha (Oriental Paper Bush)

                                                                The first open Daffodil

                                                                 Pink Hellebore

White Hellebore

                          James Applewhite in his poem Jonquils called them sunlight broken in pieces

Artist with cerebral Palsey

This link takes you to a video of a truly remarkable artist, who has overcome physical handicaps and age to produce something meaningful and beautiful.

Front Flower Bed in August

This was my yard last August, just in case we all need a reminder that slowly, surely, the seasons are changing and the plants and people along with them.
An old red oak is the backdrop to my largest flower bed. Some long ago hurricane probably took the top out, and it has some kind of scar or growth on one of the limbs that has gotten bigger and changed shape over the years, but it solders on, providing shelter and food for local wildlife as well as shade shade and lowering of temperature in my yard

Bromeliad in December

This bromeliad has bloomed twice with 2 bloom stalks each time in the month of December. If you frequent plant stores (or big box plant shops) in winter you will see lots of different bromeliads blooming. This is one of the species of Bilbergia, and was given to me several years ago by a friend.

Bad News About My Vocation

I snagged this from the Writer's Almanac. It made me laugh.



Bad News About My Vocation 
by Ron Koertge

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I remember how the upper crust in my hometown
pronounced it-care-a-mel. Which is correct, I guess,
but to everybody else it was carmel.

Which led to the misconception about the order
of Carmelites.

I imagined they served God by heating sugar
to about 170 C, then adding milk and butter
and vanilla essence while they listened
to the radio.

I thought I could do that. I could wear the white
shirt and pants. I knew I couldn’t be good
but I might be a good candy maker.

So imagine my chagrin when I learned about
the vows of poverty and toil enjoined
by these particular friars.

I also crossed off my list the Marshmellowites
and the Applepieites, two other orders I
was thinking of joining.