Savannah Garden Diary

I have just moved this Clerodenron thomsoniae, which I got as a cutting from Connie, from the jungle around the bird house in the front to the veg garden fence in back. Everything climbing up the bird house post had to go because the jasmine had got completely out of hand and was invading hydrangeas 50 feet away. (Controlling that is another story.)

I absolutely love these flowers. They are right up there with Kalmia latifolia (which we can’t grow here, alas) on my all time favorite flowers list. But I haven’t completely figured out the plant’s likes and dislikes. It is a well-behaved small vine, that requires a bit of training to climb. And it obviously likes a bit more nutrition than is native to our sandy soil, because mine has a tendency to yellow. Being tropical, it probably likes a lot of organic matter.

It’s the pruning and sun exposure I’m not sure about. Connie slashed hers to the ground and it flowered magnificently on short stalks, so it doesn’t mind heavy pruning. The books say it needs lots of light, but mine flowered best when it was practically invisible under the jasmine foliage, as in this photo from last summer. I guess a bit more trial and error is indicated.

Gardening Gone Wild has a Design Workshop on fences and walls (which is an excellent idea), so I’ll chip in with my most recent fence.

This is the entrance to the service area and vegetable garden. The mess in that corner of the garden is past praying for, what with compost piles, our johnboat, Richard’s dinghy, and piles of lumber from tearing out the deck. So I decided to screen it off with a fence, made largely from timbers recycled from the deck.

I also needed somewhere to put the dragon fountain Richard gave me, which is not really designed for the great outdoors, being made of plywood with a coating of fiberglass. But I had to rescue it because he commissioned it specially and I have developed a fondness for that foolish head. I made some repairs to the top half, which seemed rescueable. It was obviously not going to last long if exposed to the elements, so I decided a roofed gateway would give it a bit of protection.

The red paint was to give the gateway a vaguely Chinese look that would make the dragon feel at home. The pond beneath the dragon looks all right in this photo, but it has not proved a success. I am going to have to rethink that.

This photo was also taken before the Clematis armandii on the right died. That’s the second one that has died in the same position. I don’t know why. I put them there because they do so well in England that I assumed they liked it wet, and that is the vegetable garden, so it gets plenty of water. Tom has a lovely one just a few blocks from here, so it’s not that you can’t grow them in Savannah. I think I will just conclude that armandii is not for me, and give up on it.

This is a nvg photo of the Minneola that I planted 5 years ago under the mistaken impression that it was a Meyer’s Lemon. Last year it bore 2 fruit, one of which fell off before ripe, and this is what happened this year.

Also last year for the first time, I gave my citrus a little tlc (pruning and citrus spikes), impressed by the quality of Vicky and Fred’s trees, which seem to give them oranges and lemons for about 6 months of the year. Vicky says they need one good soak in the spring, a little fertilizer, and that’s about it.

The fruit of this thing is very bitter. Fred drinks the juice, but I am not so hardy. I plan English-type marmalade, which is really made with Seville oranges. (I have photos of orange trees in the streets of Sevilla, but without fruit, since we were there in October.) I just hope we don’t have a heavy frost to mess up the fruit while we are away for Christmas.

The citrus book says Minneola is a tangelo and that tangelos are hybrids between various mandarins and grapefruits.

Pam at Wicked Gardener (Wicked Gardener: Next Year’s Plans) has a delightful system whereby she sketches a plan for a corner of the garden and then posts photographs of progress as she pulls the design into shape.

Of course I sketch too, but my sketches are not fit for publication. I really like this approach. I think I shall have to tidy up my sketches.

It is December 18, and we have now had 2 nights of frost. The bird bath had a few ice floes last night. Some meteorologist, pontificating in the paper, says that is the last frost we shall have this winter, but I doubt it. Simone Van Stolk kept records for years, and we averaged 6 frosts per winter.

There is no sign of frost damage to bougainvillea, bananas, Brugmansia, or anything else I think of as tender, but I suppose the damage may show up later.

Yaupon holly (Ilex vomitoria) in all its winter glory.

I love those translucent berries. And so will the cedar waxwings when they (with any luck) descend on us in March.

I am rather amazed at how much this tree has grown since planted as a weedy little thing in 2005. Not that it started out weedy, but it had been grown as a bush and I wanted a tree, so I pruned it ruthlessly. Its “trunk” is still an extremely odd shape, but it is straightening out slowly.

I realize that impatience is one of my besetting sins. When I want a tree, I want it now, so I don’t wait to look for one that would be more suitable. The only Yaupon holly left at Miles Nursery was this shrub one, so I took it and now have to wrestle with high-heading it so it doesn’t block the view of the marsh. The same thing happened with the Chionanthus virginicus (ginica?) in the front yard.

While looking for old photos for before and after shots, I was fairly amazed by how neat, tidy, and floriferous the garden was before I became an arthritic cripple. I wonder if I can really get back to that again.

Of course in this photo, I am also struck by how filthy the roof is from the constant shower of pine needles, and how badly the house needs painting. From the amazingly healthy state of the neglected lawn, it is also clear that 2001 was what we would consider a very wet year from our present drought-ridden perspective.

Here’s another view of the same border at the same time. (more…)

This is a rather nice photo of a Cherokee rose (Rosa laevigata). Although not native, this is the state flower of Georgia. It was imported from China about 200 years ago to be used as fencing, because it is amazingly prickly and fast-growing. (Which was why it was amazingly stupid of me to plant it on a pergola Thom and Richard built at Hilary Road right outside the patio door.)

I have just ordered one from the Antique Rose Emporium.

Thom has found a pine tree between the lawn and the marsh where, with any luck, it can ramble without tearing anyone to pieces.

I think the loveliest example I have every seen was at the north end of Jekyll Island, where wisteria and Cherokee roses from abandoned homesteads scramble in their dozens up the pine trees.

I’ve decided I am weary of garden blogs that show everything perfect and weed-free. They are like Martha Stewart–making everywoman feel guilty, or the reason Nancy and I never visit the houses that are on show during the Holiday Tour of Homes. It’s all very well to show most plants only when they are in flower. That’s when most of them are most interesting. But the rest of the garden ought to be remembered when it looked terrible, so that we can enjoy it the more when it looks great.

This is the vegetable garden and shed this December, after 2 years of neglect during my arthritic hips stage. I have at least removed and replaced (in concrete, which goes against my grain) the near fence post on the left, although I haven’t yet replaced the lattice in the top half of the fence. This I need to do because a Zepherine Drouhan is destined to scramble through that fence as soon as it arrives at the end of the month

I need to get the vegetable garden ready to plant the pimientos de Padron in late February or early March. The soil is in lovely shape thanks to generous dollops of manure, compost, peat moss, newspaper, and pine straw. But trumpet vine invaded while the garden was unplanted last year, and is a monster to remove. I have (belatedly) planted sweet peas along the dog fence on the north side of the garden.

My most important chore this winter has been to get rid of the Helianthus-ridden bed and path in the front yard. They were so pretty, and of sentimental value because I found them on a roadside near Okefenokee, but oh, so agressive. Here’s a photo of them 5 years ago when they were just a little clump

It is going to take years to get rid of them completely, but eventually they will be preplaced by frequently mown grass (which I will sod in the spring) and an odd-shaped central island, which will block the view across the street from the front door (which since July has large windows). At the moment, the bed contains hydrangeas, 2 ill-considered Cleyera, and a large red camellia Thom gave me, whose color offends me. Not sure what to do about that.

Helianthus angustifolius in all its native glory. Also in this photo, I see is one of Connie’s clerodendrons. Also charming and well-behaved if you spend hours every spring pulling out their million offshoots. By the time this fall rolled around, I had to take a machete to the Helianthus before people could get to our front door.

Now that we have cleared many trees so that there is some sunshine at the back of the house, I am moving most of my gardening to the back yard. I want the front to be reasonably simple, so that it can be looked after by George and an annual weed/newspaper/pine straw blitz.

This month I have also added to this camellia bed a second Acer palmatum ‘Bloodgood,’ a second Meyer’s Improved lemon, and a banana from the Bamboo Farm. I’ve already forgotten the variety, but apparently a woman on Tybee ripened several pounds from it this year.

In addition, the Brugmansia, which started life as a cutting I stole from Evergreen Nursery when it was alive on President Street, had amazingly survived in a choking thicket of morning glory, and was flowering beautifully, so I chopped it back and moved it to a better location where George won’t weed-whack it. It is now sending out new shoots at high speed.

Furthermore, there is a Brugmansia down the road which is the size of a small tree and blooming like crazy in the middle of December. Global warming strikes again. The first time I saw one that had overwintered (without any set back) in this part of the world was in 2006 in downtown Charleston, but I assumed that was in a heat island.