Garden Update

I've been busy in the garden lately, spending two or three hours on it every day. After I had trees cut down in my yard, I made three large flower beds and started growing daylilies, lilies, and bearded irises. I have a lot more sun in my yard now and things are looking good. Here's some recent photos.

A purple Louisiana iris

This is a bearded iris I transplanted from my great-grandmother's house. If I identified it correctly, it's called 'Francina' and dates from 1920. The flower smells like grapes.

Another, smaller, bearded iris from my great-grandmother's. I haven't identified it yet.

Another shot

This was my first year growing borage. The flowers are edible, and they indeed taste like cucumber

A few Narcissus x odorus bulbs I dug from my mom's yard

Freshly dug bulb of Narcissus broussonetii. It had two large, fleshy, ridged roots, which I found unusual. I haven't got this fall-bloomer to flower yet but let's hope we see some blooms this November.

My 'Pepperbox' poppies are starting to bloom. This is a strain grown for poppy seeds. I transplanted them in February. People say you can't transplant poppies, but that's not true. The trick is that you have to be very careful. When I transplanted them, it was like surgery. I gently took them out of the pots, gently placed them in pre-dug holes, and lightly pushed dirt around the root ball without disturbing it at all. Then I watered them in with a gentle shower attachment.

My system of keeping track of daffodil seeds: placing them in gelatin capsules. Each capsule has seeds from a specific cross I made.

While my roommate and I were talking on the patio, a Giant Swallowtail butterfly flew in and started laying her eggs on my citrus trees. She wasn't afraid of us at all; she was just fluttering all around us. It amazes me how they can find citrus trees.

Fragrant Camellias and Historic Daffodils

Here's what was blooming in my garden last week.

I bought a new camellia this year, a hybrid camellia from New Zealand called 'High Fragrance'. I was curious about a fragrant camellia, because I love camellias and I love fragrant plants. The fragrance can be quite subtle. I noticed it most on a day when it got into the 70s. It has Camellia japonica as one parent, and looks similar, though just different enough to satisfy curiosity.

Camellia 'High Fragrance'

Camellia 'High Fragrance'

A lot of daffodils are in bloom. Actually, the daffodil season is about to be over. The only one that hasn't bloomed yet is 'Sir Winston Churchill', though it may also be a year when Twin Sisters decides to bloom, which usually happens closer to May.

'White Lady' is one of my favorites and is blooming now. It's a historic cultivar, and a small-cup daffodil, too, which usually don't do so well in the South.

Narcissus 'White Lady'

Narcissus 'White Lady'

Narcissus 'White Lady'

Narcissus 'White Lady'

'Matador' is also blooming. It's new for me this year, having acquired it last fall. It's well known in the daffodil world for its unique genetics: a tetraploid with equal parts standard daffodil and tazetta lineage. This makes it especially valuable for hybridizing. In fact, several of the daffodils I already own are progeny of 'Matador': 'Falconet', 'Martinette', and 'Bittern'.

Narcissus 'Matador'

Narcissus 'Matador'

Narcissus 'Matador'

Last but not least, the super-vigorous 'Silver Chimes' is blooming. It's a massive daffodil with huge bulbs, robust foliage, and many flower stems. I picked some before a thunderstorm and brought them inside:

Narcissus 'Silver Chimes'

Narcissus 'Silver Chimes'

Narcissus 'Silver Chimes'

They last about a week in a vase.

More Daffodils

With our mild weather, the daffodils are coming on like crazy. 'Trevithian' is in full bloom, which normally happens in mid-March. This is also one of the few years I remember when saucer magnolias bloomed and didn't get kicked back by a freeze.

I took more photos of some daffodils currently in bloom. I was looking over my negatives, to try and see if I could determine just by looking at a negative whether I would like the photo. I noticed that all of my favorite photos so far have really dense negatives, and most of the "blah" photos I've taken thus far have thin negatives. So, this time, I shot a roll of Ektar 100 film and erred on the side of longer exposures. Perhaps I made the exposures too long, because some of the resulting photos were very saturated and had strange color casts, as you'll see.

'Princeps'

'Princeps'

'Bittern'

'Bittern' - my most massively-overexposed shot. Colors turned out pretty wild.

'Cragford' - a long exposure using only available twilight.

'Cragford' - an even longer exposure with strong color casts

'Trevithian'

'Trevithian'

'Abba' - this photo was taken in almost total nighttime, but the long exposure captured the remaining blue twilight

Narcissus jonquilla, at f/3.5

Narcissus jonquilla, at f/11

Narcissus jonquilla var. henriquesii (compare with N. jonquilla above to see how this one is more substantial and the other is more dainty). I took this photo at night, too, with about a 14 second exposure, the light on the tree coming from my porch light.

Daffodils 2019

It has been a while. I've been growing and photographic daffodils this year, as always. With the mild weather and rain lately, the daffodils are really coming on.

Not a daffodil, of course, but the autumn-blooming Crocus laevigatus. This was taken on the Fourth Sunday of Advent, the first day it bloomed.

Narcissus 'Sweetness', always the first Jonquilla hybrid to bloom for me. I like the heavy substance to this flower. It never falls over and is impervious to rain.

'Cragford', vibrant red cups.

N. jonquilla var. henriquesii

N. jonquilla var. henriquesii

'Autumn Pearl' - a not-so-autumn bloomer for me. It started in mid-January. Incidentally, 'Wintersun' is always the first daffodil for me. It starts in early December.

'Minor Monarque' - I bought this from Old House Gardens. It didn't bloom last year, but this year every bulb bloomed. Conversely, 'Grand Monarque' bloomed last year but may not bloom this year.

Another shot of N. jonquilla var. henriquesii - the full clump.

'Sweetness' at sunset

N. jonquilla var. henriquesii at sunset

Saturday in Chewacla

I have a pinhole camera workflow I like now. I take a whole roll of twelve pinhole photos on a single day and develop it right away. I took these photos on Saturday, using Ilford Pan F+ film and developed in Diafine. The photos are in the original order.