Tag: camellias

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Christine's garden Gardening Home page features

Proud of my Camellias

Well this was a first for me … today a friend I had not seen in a few weeks “ooohed”  and “aahed” about my Camellias and complimented me on my garden! It was a great moment. My lovely daughter is always enthusiastic and Barbie, bless you, you always say lovely things about the garden and I know you both mean it – but when a friend who has little interest in gardening told me today how lovely everything looks and stopped in front of the newly blossoming Camellias and said “wow, what lovely glossy leaves and beautiful flowers” … well, I felt so proud and happy!

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[one_half_last]Camellia[/one_half_last]

[one_half]More prettiness[/one_half]

[one_half_last]My favourite one[/one_half_last]

[one_half]Much more of the pretty[/one_half]

[one_half_last]And then some of the glossy[/one_half_last]

And the Camellias really are show-stoppingly gorgeous right now. Only three of my +/- 25 Camellias have started flowering and they really are giving us a wonderful show. A beautiful red and two different pinks are flowering in the front garden. One small shrub (the red) and two very large shrubs are covered in flowers. It has been a lot of work keeping them in tip-top shape and bug free. Aphids have been at them throughout the summer and its required bi-weekly inspections and washing off of pests and now we have these lovely healthy blooms. What a joy!

I’ve just read this: Aphids are attacked by a number of natural enemies including ladybug beetles and small wasps. I was wondering why I have so many wasps in my garden …

Happy gardening and I wish you a “blooming good week”!
xxx

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Christine's garden Gardening Home page features

First Camellia bloom of the season

Second Camellia

The days are getting noticeably shorter here and the temperatures have dropped from the high 30’s of last week to a slightly chilly 23º C today. I had to go looking for a warmer jersey for the first time this year because my normal cardies were not doing it for me anymore. So I guess Autumn is actually here. We will in all likelihood still have some warmer days again until the chill sets in in mid to late April. Such is Autumn here in Cape Town. One day you are desperately trying to escape from the heat and the next day you’re looking for warm clothes…

It’s my very first “caring-about-my-garden” Autumn and so I’m watching the changes happening in the garden with interest and some anticipation (and expectation!). I have lots of Camellias in the garden of varying age, size and types and am watching all of them get buds. To my delight the first one has started to flower – beautiful crimson flowers which I thought I would share …

[one_half]First Camellia BloomFirst Camellia Bloom[/one_half]

[one_half_last]… and the SecondSecond Camellia[/one_half_last]

These are on a small(ish) compact shrub (about half a metre in height and sprawling one metre wide). The first flower opened on Tuesday and today there are four blooms on it with about twenty buds ready to spring into action. I love these shrubs, I’ve had a few of them attacked by aphids and have been diligently spraying these bugs off whenever I saw them and a quick check today and the Camellias are bug-free (Yay!). How do I care for them? Regular watering (its been daily watering during our summer heat), checking for bugs and spraying, all got some extra compost a week ago and regular fertilising with special fertiliser for Camellias. And of course they all have a generous layer of mulch around them. That’s it. They seem to be pretty hardy because they are all beautiful, healthy plants.

Watching the Camellias of all colours and sizes flower will no doubt cheer me up through the next four months when not much else will be happening in the garden … and I’m sure I will bore you to death with endless posts and photos of them all 🙂

I’ve just been on the American Camellia Societies website which has an encyclopedia of over 800 varieties of Camellias … wow! I didn’t know there are that many. It looks like a great website, one I’m sure to learn a lot from. http://www.camellias-acs.com/

 

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Bugs & Pests Christine's garden

Bugs and things …

Bugs on Camellias

I spent the better part of last Sunday spraying all my plants that had any creepies on them with the organic insecticide I bought and I felt pretty proud of myself afterwards, believing I had rid my garden of all the “nasties”. The spray container I have only holds 1 litre of water which I then add the insecticide too, then pump and spray. With only one litre and many plants to spray, I was running backwards and forwards refilling the container to get all the plants affected done. After that I did some cutting back of plants (to make them bush) etc. etc. All in all it felt like I had worked pretty hard. I’ve been very busy with work this week and have had hardly any time to check on things so Dexter and I did a walkabout now – and I was well rewarded with lots of new leaves sprouting on some plants that got cut back, all the sprayed plants look bug free …

But then … it seems like they all packed up shop on the sprayed plants and moved to one of my Camellias! The whole plant is covered in these things and ants are feeding on them!

Here they are. I am assuming they are Aphids. Can you tell? (you can click on the photos to see the large versions). Whatever they are I think the Ludwigs spray should get rid of them too. Dang, I thought I was through with the spraying for a while …

[one_half]Bugs on Camellias
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[one_half_last]Bugs on Camellias[/one_half_last]

Tomorrow I am going to go get me one of these bug sprayer thingys… My specs? It must hold about 5 litres of fluid, be reasonably light and east to use! Going to zap those bugs once and for all!

Bug sprayer thingy!

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Christine's garden Gardening

My “back garden” make-over

Back Garden January 2011

I’ve been going through hundreds of old photographs to find before pics to show you of how the back area of my garden looked when we first bought this house. It really was not attractive – it was already overgrown and was dominated by ivy, ferns and the trees! The only thing I regret is that the “gardener” I got to mow the lawn and “tidy up” the garden destroyed a huge, beautiful lavender bush we had in the back garden. Everything else was … well IVY and the delicious monster which Kathryn decided to keep in the garden. I’m still not mad about it, I may remove it one day, but for now I defer to her better judgement.

After our magical day spent in Philadelphia yesterday with the kids and their families, I spent the best part of today working on this part of the garden – As I mentioned to you, I have a bit of an “ant problem” back there and aphids are attacking the Camellias, so armed with my organic pest repellent I’ve been spraying and then weeding, removing dead leaves, learning to prune … lots of work!

Here is a current comparison in photographs. The way it looked before Kathryn worked her magic and a photo I took today.

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Before – July 2010

Back Garden July 2010[/one_half]

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6 Months later – January 2011

Back Garden January 2011[/one_half_last]

I do still hate seeing the house next door but the rate at which the trees are growing (especially the Viburnum that was planted), I’m confident that within a year I should have my privacy back. Not that they can see over their wall into my garden, but I just don’t like looking at neighbour houses from my garden.

I uploaded a set of photos of the “progress” the plants have made to Flickr.com in case you are interested in seeing how its progressed. There is one that I took just after the new plants and lawn were planted, then one in October, one in December and then two photos I took today. Here is the link: My Back Garden progress in photos. I’ll add more to the set as time goes by.

That’s all for today!
Ciao
xxx