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

Late Summer

It's now late summer here. I have to admit I've gone on a garden frenzy lately, buying mostly tropicals, which are plants I was scarcely interested in before. I have an Epiphyllum (jungle) cactus, three Tillandsias and a Vriesia (bromeliads), two angel-wing begonias, an African violet, a bird's nest fern...what else?

I'm big into bulbs, too. I repotted my rain lilies, and bought a new species Habranthus brachyandrus, which look like small light pink amaryllises with dark purple centers. I have a native spider-lily (Hymenocallis occidentalis), sweet-almond Verbena, a native blue sage (Salvia azurea), and that's about it I think.

My night-blooming gladioli haven't bloomed yet. I've heard they bloom late, but by now I'm starting to wonder if they ever will. I took my xAmarcrinum bulbs out of their pot and put them in the ground. I took my 'Sir Winston Churchill' daffodils out of the ground and may put them in pots.

I was thinking of planting large drifts of daffodils in my back yard. I'll probably go with the cultivars 'Sweetness', 'Kedron', 'Silver Chimes', 'Thalia', and 'Trevithian'. They're my most reliable daffodils.

Although now I'm growing in heavy red clay instead of pure sand. I wonder how that will change things. Last month I amended a test patch of red clay. I applied a copious amount of dolomitic lime and incorporated it down to a foot deep. Then I added straw and alfalfa meal as organic matter down to six inches. Lime and heaps of organic matter are two cure-alls for most Southern soils, whether poor sand or heavy clay. It has been interesting to watch the transformation of the red clay since this treatment. Now the color is more grey/brown, and the texture is very loose and crumbly. Although, when wet, it is still very sticky. I'll want to add triple or quadruple the amount of organic matter. I hope to plant this test area in the fall, maybe with violas and Icelandic poppies.

Here are some recent plant photos:

Wild sweet potato - growing in the woods at my dad's

Sneezeweed - growing at my dad's

Lavandula x intermedia 'Grosso' - this is one of the cultivars of lavender grown commercially in France. I had a nice harvest of it this year. The secret of keeping lavender alive in the South: grow cultivars of L. x intermedia instead of English lavender (L. angustifolia), grow it in a large terracotta pot with sharply-draining potting mix, don't wet the leaves when watering, and keep it in a place where it gets a lot of sun but no rainfall. It can get rainfall in winter, though.

Salvia buchananii

Pycnanthemum muticum, a native mountain-mint. I like the way it smells better than true mint, and it attracts so many pollinators it's unbelievable. 

Lilium 'Black Beauty', old stand-by

Sabatia angularis - a lovely summer wildflower that grows in the woods near my dad's house.

Button-bush, Cephalanthus occidentalis. I'm deeply in love with this native shrub that likes to grow near water. I don't know why people don't grow it more often. Maybe because the flowers last only a couple of weeks.

A native terrestrial orchid growing at the arboretum along with the pitcher plants.

'Aspasia' and 'Goose Green'

There's something sublime about the daffodils with Poeticus ancestry. For me at least, they have a mystique that goes beyond words. Perhaps it's the pristine white petals, or the fact that they bloom on the cusp of summer, or that my great-grandmother's house had fields of the heirloom Poeticus 'Twin Sisters'. Even the name, Poeticus, calls to my mind something like ancient Greece.

My 'Twin Sisters' didn't bloom, but two other Poeticus daffodils I tried did bloom. The first was 'Aspasia', and the second 'Goose Green'. They were, together, my last daffodils to bloom.

'Aspasia'

'Aspasia'

'Goose Green'

'Goose Green'

'Goose Green'

As a bonus, blooming around the same time was this purple Louisiana iris:

Recent Photos

Here are some recent photos of things blooming (well, a few weeks ago now):

Rosa 'Louis Philippe'

Narcissus 'Aspasia', the penultimate daffodil to bloom for me.