Sunny Weekend

February 1, 2009 at 12:29 pm (Gardening)
Tags: Flowers, Gardening, Perennials

“Sunny Weekend”, a copyrighted post, was written for my WordPress blog called Always Growing by Jan in Covington, Louisiana 

 

A sunny weekend, at last.  This weekend has been so nice – cool, sunny, light breeze.   This is the first weekend in months that has been this nice, and I was able to get out in the garden and see how things are doing.  It is amazing how fast things seem to change at this time of year when you are not out in the garden every day.  I can’t wait for longer days, so that after work, I will have more opportunity to be outside.

 

First surprise was how big the daylilies have gotton.  These are evergreen daylilies, but come late fall and early winter they don’t look their best.  Now, they are filling out nicely with a great deal of new growth.  A few of the other evergreen daylilies are coming out nicely too.  Hopefully this will be a good year for them.  A few of the dormant type dayliles are also starting to show some early beginnings.  Plum tree daylily is sending out new growth, as is Custard Candy.

 

Evergreen Daylilies in late January

Emerging Plum Tree Daylilies

Next stop was seeing if any damage was done by the latest freezes.  None to report on, thank goodness, but I did notice that the curry plant I planted last spring was totally unaffected by the cold weather.  We even had two hard freezes, and it came through without any damage.  Last year was the first time I saw this plant, and since it has done so well, I hope to get more to add to the garden.  Plants with gray or silver foliage often do not do well here because of the humidity and heat.  It is nice to find a plant this color that does so well for us here.

Curry Plant Made It Through the Cold Weather

One of the plants that does best for me in cooler weather is acanthus.  By late August, it usually has all but disappeared, but in January, it looks great.  I have never had any blooms because I keep it in a shadier area than it likes to bloom.  But, it is the foliage that I want most, so to keep this plant happy in our heat, I keep in where the sun is not so constant.

The sea holly is up again.  I think this plant is about three or four years old.  This is about as big as it gets, and it never flowers.  It is supposed to grow here, but after all this time, I think it must not like our heat.  It never gets any larger than four or five inches and just hangs on through the summer.  In late winter, it pops up again, much to my surprise.  It is a determined little thing not to give up completely.

Being outside in great weather also allowed for a few garden chores, such as fertilizing the winter annuals and a little clean up.  Outside on the walk way to the patio, there was a lot of fallen flowers to rake and sweep up.

Fallen Camellia Flowers

Yes, our large Camellia has dropped many flowers this week, but not to worry, there are still plenty more on the tree.

There is rain predicted for tonight, but I am so glad it has held off until then.  It seems that sunny, mild weekends have been a rarity lately, and I have certainly enjoyed this one.