Wonderful weather condition has lastly gotten here. After the lots of months of sweltering, hot, steaming, roasting, high humidity days, we are enjoying civilized weather.How excellent it is to walk outside and not feel like we have entered a steam bath where it is difficult to breathe and not feel sweat popping out of every pore. It begins on my head and sweat is running in my eyes prior to getting to the mail box, soon it leaks from every location of my body, burning eyes and causing the nose to start running, too.These days are heavenly compared to the eight to nine months of summer we suffer through each year. Flowers and plants that are watered do not wilt in mid-day, their colors are more vibrant and blooms last longer. Potted plants do not dry out daily and perform far better. As I grow older, summers are more of a concern and the thermostat is turned a degree or more lower with passing years.Finally, cooler days have actually arrived and the country-side rejoices.Amaryllis Garden Club’s Fall Plant Swap and Sale will be held on the front yard of The Crescent, Oct. 23, Sunday from 2-4
p.m. We need to have great weather condition and the shade of the live oaks makes
for comfortable plundering through the plants offered.Anyone with an excess of plants from the summer season is welcome to bring them to offer to the general public. There is no charge to sell your plants and no charge to come and browse plants.Please established on the north side of the walkway, the club will establish on the south side. Parking behind The Crescent Gardens off Toombs Street or around VSU’s Continuing Education structures throughout Patterson Street.Please do not park in the great deal of the furnishings shop across Gordon Street from The Crescent.We will have master gardeners on website if you need plant guidance or plant recognition, bring a portion of the plant requiring IDing or a photo showing foliage and blooms.This a fun, relaxing time to talk gardening and to find plants you have been desiring. Rates are a portion of garden center or nursery costs. This is Amaryllis Club’s twice-a-year charity event to assist us with conference responsibilities to The Crescent, state and national organizations.Spider Lily, Lycoris radiata, foliage is up and growing from now till late spring. The foliage is collecting
energy to store in the bulb until September of next year when they will flower again.If the foliage is lowered, they will not flower next year. Typically a”fall clean up”will result in the foliage being cut or harmed and no flowers next fall.All bulb foliage need to complete the cycle of flowering and then the bulb is renewed by replacing the nutrition used to form this year’s blooms.This is true from crocus to Amaryllis bulbs. Spider Lily foliage is over 12 inches long, really narrow(strap-like)and has a somewhat paler line down the center of the strap.
Cold temperatures do not hurt their foliage. The straps fade away naturally in spring, the bulbs sit dormant until time for them to bloom in fall.Sasanqua camellias are
starting to flower. Of the 2 typical camellia species they are the earliest flowering one, beginning in fall and continuing through early winter season, completing
their cycle around Christmas. C. japonicas blossom later on, getting about the time sasanquas end up. Blossom time is figured out by the variety of chill hours(below 45 degrees) each cultivar requires.Early-flowering sasanquas are already starting to bloom. This species of camellia has smaller flowers than japonicas and they are far more vulnerable. The flowers are hardly ever utilized in plans due to the fact that they tend to fall apart. Camellia Shows have small classes of sasanquas due to the difficulty in transporting flowers to the shows.Camellia japonicas have stronger flowers and they are much larger, some can reach up to eight to 10 inches
across. The largest ones originate from cultivars that have been disbudded and treated with jib, a hormonal agent that produces bigger and earlier blooming blooms.Disbudding down to a few blossom buds per branch
triggers bigger flowers, all the bushes energy is directed to fewer buds causing larger flowers. The typical gardener just requires to keep their bushes pest complimentary, appropriately fertilized and sufficiently watered to delight in abundant flowers in the proper season.The best camellias for the Coastal South come from regional growers. They know the correct varieties for our zone and the plants
are adjusted to this area. Plants grown and delivered from cooler zones typically struggle for a couple of summers and finally die.Loch Laurel Camellia and Citrus nursery has actually stock grown on website, you can pick from a group of each cultivar, see the size, kind and color of flowers(in season)
and select precisely what you want.You can wander the fields of bushes, see techniques of grafting, cloning and cultivation and talk with a professional plant pathologist. In fall and winter, you will be overwhelmed by the beauty and abundance of camellia flowers.In spring, the premises are a wonderland of blooming shrubs, trees and bulbs, magnolias of numerous types, some with flowers the size of a plate. But fall and winter is the very best time to plant camellias.My little neighborhood has a dreadful new arrival, wild hogs, they have not been seen, but the damage is difficult to miss. A large portion of the pecan orchard has actually been rooted
up and tracks have been seen.They went to a big garden area I worked three years to tidy and plant. Due to summertime heat and health it has been disregarded given that June, the hogs visited it and rooted a five-foot camellia almost up, rooted up daylilies and ruined the latest planting of moon flower vines.I am having visions of my 12 gauge and dead hogs. The many deer that bedded in the back of the orchard have carried on, have not seen rabbits lately, now I am over kept up squirrels and even worse, wild hogs.In Tennessee, neighbors with corn crops had to spend nights beside their field with a canine to alert them to the wild hogs being available in, they slept in their trucks with weapons ready, to
keep the corn fields from being consumed by the huge packs of strolling hogs.Hogs are an ongoing problem in Great Smokies National Park. They damage many pristine locations and eat native plants that take years to recuperate, if ever.I run out area and will see you on the 23rd at the Plant Swap and Sale, mark your calendars.Susan Grooms lives and gardens in Lowndes County.