Camellia japonica ‘Adeyaka’
It’s camellia time.
This is the latest introduction to the garden and it is a stunner. The picture doesn’t really do it justice. It’s a very deep maroon, as opposed to the dark pink that appears on my screen.
Maybe I need a new screen. I dutifully followed Mike into PC World yesterday as he went in looking for an ethernet cable. They are not the most exciting things on earth and faced with a display of many and assorted wires and connectors it was easy to succumb to the temptation to wander off finishing up purely by chance (ahem) at the Apple stand. I must have ticked all the boxes of a likely Apple purchaser because after only a couple of minutes the manager turned up. By the time Mike reappeared clutching his £10 purchase the aforementioned manager and I had specced up a replacement for my aged MacBook Pro at a cool £2000. Perhaps unsurprisingly I was hastened from the premises.
I digress.
![Camellia 009 Wm[1]](https://www.rustyduck.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Camellia-009-Wm1.jpg)
This established camellia first appeared on the blog, and in full bloom, in the middle of January and it’s still going strong. It looks well at home in its woodland edge setting.
![Camellia 008 Wm[1]](https://www.rustyduck.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Camellia-008-Wm1.jpg)
A double, also inherited (variety unknown) has now joined it in flower up on the bank.
![Vibernum x bodnantense 003 Wm[1]](https://www.rustyduck.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Vibernum-x-bodnantense-003-Wm1.jpg)
Vibernum x bodnantense
Another one with staying power. It’s been flowering on and off since last autumn. Although some of the blooms are looking a little jaded now, I’ve never seen it so jam packed with fragrant pink clusters.
.
There’s been a bit of a seismic shift over the last day or two.
I have decided to abandon growing bulbs in the ground. The wire cages that I planted them into last year worked a treat. To a point. The mice now just wait until the juicy young shoots break through the top of the cage and then snap them off. Once again I’ve lost everything I planted. It’s not a decision taken lightly as I love Spring bulbs, but really, after three years of trying, what’s the point?
![Muscari 002 Wm[1]](https://www.rustyduck.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Muscari-002-Wm1.jpg)
Muscari
Not everything suffers. There are plenty of grape hyacinths, daffodils too. The previous incumbent tackled the mice far more aggressively than we do, with traps and I suspect much worse. The inherited planting seems to survive.
![Fritillaria nigra 001 Wm[1]](https://www.rustyduck.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Fritillaria-nigra-001-Wm1.jpg)
Fritillaria nigra
So what’s this?
A foolhardy addition if ever there was one? Especially as it’s not only the mice that I need to worry about here..
I have fallen for its charms. No, not yours Ptolemy. Well, maybe a bit.
The focus this year will be to mouse proof the greenhouse and the cold frames and start a collection of exquisite and rare bulbs in pots. Alpines too. Delicate things that would be unlikely to survive the rigours of the Devon climate without some protection.
![Corydalis 'George Baker' 001 Wm[1]](https://www.rustyduck.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Corydalis-George-Baker-001-Wm1.jpg)
Corydalis ‘George Baker’
Inside or outside? It needs a little shade, a woodland setting. Maybe bulk it up a bit before planting it out.
![Primula vulgaris 009 Wm[1]](https://www.rustyduck.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Primula-vulgaris-009-Wm1.jpg)
Primula vulgaris
There has been an explosion of pale yellow over the last couple of weeks. Not only in the garden but in the Devon banks and hedgerows that run alongside every country lane as the wild primroses come out in force. They are even popping up in the middle of the lawn.
![Abeliophyllum distichum 001 Wm[2]](https://www.rustyduck.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Abeliophyllum-distichum-001-Wm2.jpg)
Abeliophyllum distichum
The white forsythia. Gentler on the eye than its namesake, flowering earlier too and scented.
![Orchid 003 Wm[1]](https://www.rustyduck.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Orchid-003-Wm1.jpg)
Moving indoors I have an orchid in flower.
![Unknown 001 Wm[1]](https://www.rustyduck.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Unknown-001-Wm1.jpg)
And then there’s this.
I retrieved it from my mother’s room at the nursing home, after she died. It had been intermittently watered and with the benefit of a little tlc has produced some new leaves. But I had no idea that it flowered, bearing the most delicate of blooms imaginable.
![Unknown 002 Wm[1]](https://www.rustyduck.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Unknown-002-Wm1.jpg)
Can anyone help me with an ID?
Linking to Carol and Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day at May Dreams Gardens (here), where you will find many other March bloomers from around the world.
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What a lovely post for GBBD! I have the same trouble here with something (moles, voles?) eating my bulbs.
Happy Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day!
Lea
Thanks Lea. They are such a nuisance!
Sorry to be brief, can’t really type right now, I wonder if the mystery plant is something related to a frangipane as the leaves remind me of them even though the flower is wrong! Hugs to you today. xx
I can see exactly where you’re coming from with frangipane, but yes the flower is wrong. More like a euphorbia.
Your mother’s plant has to be a Euphorbia, but hard to know which one. Hope someone else can tell you! Infuriating mice – I had the same with squirrels and my bulbs when I lived in the UK. Good luck with greenhousing them next year (the bulbs, not the mice!).
Hi Janna and welcome to rusty duck.
The mice seem to find their way into everywhere, it’s going to be an uphill task just keeping the greenhouse safe. Especially when I need to open the door for ventilation!
It all looks wonderful … I very much appreciate gardens with so much variety. Grape hyacinths remind me of my grandmother, her front garden was overrun by them in her later years.
I’m hoping the grape hyacinths will spread around a bit here too. I have a theory that the mice target recently disturbed ground, which is why the bulbs planted years ago seem to be OK but new plantings fail. Either that or these bulbs are just not to pesky rodent taste. Like daffodils and, more regrettably, spanish bluebells! Thanks Annie.
Beautiful – Camelias are not harday in my area. So I have to see them in Britain! The plant is an Euphorbia, but which one?
Sigrun
Camellias do need to be carefully placed here too… somewhere sheltered where they do not receive a combination of early morning frost and sun, which damages the flowers.
That mystery plant is gorgeous, I shall check back and see what it is, no doubt someone will know. I love the white forsythia, I had no idea you could get white ones. We had lots of yellow when I was little, we used to put some in a jug around the house. And those camellias, beautiful, they are my favourite flower for this time of year. I have a tiny white one in the front garden, and I’m waiting for a flower or two. But that top one in the deepest darkest maroon is wonderful, absolutely wonderful. That’s one of my favourite flower colours. Perfect. CJ xx
The white forsythia is apparently in the same family as the yellow and unfortunately has the same untidy growth habit. The big pluses for me are the colour and the scent. I can see a camellia collection coming on, if I can find the space!
Janna is right, it is a spurge (lovely sounding word), a euphorbia milii or crown of thorns. My mum had one too. You can cut to the base some of the more woody stems and it will be encouraged to send up new growth. I love the wild primroses and I too have them popping up in the damp grass around the edge of the pond. Your wild garden is wonderful, your photographs so crisp and your prose a delight. Thank you Jessica.
Hi Sarah, thank you for your kind comments and welcome to rusty duck!
The primroses are making their presence felt in some longer grass to one side of the main lawn. The grass is growing already, I may have to physically restrain Mike and the mower for a bit longer. But even though it is cut frequently in summer the primroses still come back year after year.
I remember well our trips to PC World, but it was me ushering Lester out of the shop, often tout suite because he had spotted something or other which he thought he simply had to have!
Love those camellias, never been able to grow them anywhere I have lived, but they are a lovely shrub. Perhaps when the courtyard is minus its chicken population I might have another go at growing it. Vx
Camellias can do well in pots too, for a few years, with ericaceous compost.
Mike is the computer nut here, but there is just something about the design of an Apple Mac. Such a lovely thing would grace the new study perfectly.
So many beautiful blooms. I do love the white forsythia, I’ve got the yellow version in my garden but that white is wonderful. Such a shame about the bulbs, I thought you’d cracked it with the metal cages but they’re not to be thwarted are they?
I thought I’d cracked it too. I did get, briefly, about three Iris Katherine Hodgkin blooms, but then something just gobbled the lot. Never underestimate mice Jo, they will take over the world some day.
The camellia flower may look even more beautiful in real life nut the screen variation looks pretty special. I’ve never come across a white forsythia before and I do like it,
As for Ptolemy – what a cute pose,
It is a lovely camellia. It needs to get a lot bigger but when it does it will make a nice contrast to the pink ones we inherited.
So many lovely blooms here, how lovely to have a new lappie too! I do like your solution re the bulbs in the greenhouse, it will be such a pleasure seeing them all safe in the one place.xxx
No lappie just yet, it needs a bit more persuasion. Of course, himself got a new one via an accident with a gin and tonic. Now if the same thing were to happen to me he couldn’t really say anything could he? 🙂
I also think your mystery plant is a type of euphorbia. I have two of them, one variegated, outside. They won’t be blooming for a while. I love Camillas and enjoyed yours; they will not grow in our harsh upstate New York climate. Although, one day, in my retirement, I may try to grow one. Incidentally, on my blog, I posted a picture of a kalanchoe in bloom. This was given to me by a neighbor, now deceased, from when he first started chemo. I’ve kept it going about 3 years now. I smiled when you talked about your mystery plant. May it bloom for you for years to come. Happy GBBD.
The orchid came from my mother too. She had a lot of success with them, far more so than me. Yet this one has bloomed two years running now, she must still have some influence over it somehow!
Oh, I feel your pain regarding the loss of bulbs. I am in the city and have had little luck with bulbs not planted in containers. The moles get to them. sigh. Thus containers it is. Abeliophyllum distichum is really beautiful. I’ve not seen it before. Lovely. Happy GBBD!
Well, thankfully bulbs do look good in containers. It is the way forward for me, for sure.
The single camellias are lovely. They are not hardy for us but I saw some very nice ones in Victoria B.C. in January.
Like hellebores I love to see the camellias in bloom, they are the first signs of Spring for me especially as it appears I cannot now have bulbs!
I adore March in the garden, first signs of proper springtime and still it holds so much promise! Camellias are such a welcome sight, they are an excellent reliable plant, old faithfuls for me! That pheasant though pesky, is absolutely gorgeous, what a great picture!! Hope you’re having a great weekend! Katie x
The trouble with pheasants is they take off the flower heads without eating them, they just discard them on the ground. I could bear it more easily if they were providing a food source, but it appears not. He is gorgeous though (and knows it)!
Beautiful blooms, and gorgeous colours on Ptolemy. Your plant looks familiar, but the name doesn’t pop into my mind. I’ll keep thinking about it.
The photo is an old one, but the pheasants are still very much in evidence. I’m writing as it is getting dark and I can hear them flapping and squawking in the woods. It’s all very territorial at the moment!
The flowers do resemble those of the Euphorbia but I have never seen one with leaves or a trunk like that. How lovely it is though that your mother’s plant is flourishing so well for you. I haven’t looked at my Fritillaries but I very much doubt if they are as advanced as yours. The Abeliophyllum distichum is a beauty.
I planted the more usual F. meleagris bulbs in autumn and not a single one has come up. Perhaps I was a bit late doing it, now I come to think of it. They went into a cage too so they should at least have sprouted.
Well, you do have some flowers this time of year that the mice haven’t eaten, so that’s a good thing. I can feel your disappointment at having to give up trying with bulbs, though.
There are plenty of alternatives I guess. And I’m quite excited about trying some of the rarities in the greenhouse, a bit of a challenge. Thanks Alison.
We had a common euphorbia outside our previous house and DH came out in a terrible rash when he cut it back. We were then told mask-gloves-full-bodysuit protection was necessary, so we got a gardner in to deal to it. Sad, as it grew well. I love Ptolemy – what was his question? He was definitely talking to you!
The sap is nasty stuff. Knowing now that the plant is a euphorbia I’ll treat it with more respect.
Ptolemy only ever has one question when he is under the bird table like that.. “where’s my corn?”
I adore Ptolemy. Great pic – they’re all great pix. My viburnum bodnantense has only just emerged – bit sinister, I think as usually it flowers all winter long. Do hope it isn’t on its way out – it certainly doesn’t look as healthy as yours.
This one has bloomed on and off but this has been its best month by far. The wind and heavy rain that we had in February may well have damaged some of the buds though. Flowering does seem to be weather dependent.
The white forsythia is gorgeous. Certainly would be a much better fit in my garden. I sympathize with your bulb dilemma. Three years seems like long enough to give it a try before you move on to something else.
After three years the message has got through.. mice and squirrels have the upper hand!
Your Camellias are wonderful! My single C. japonica hybrid refuses to bloom, opening only one bud at a time – I’m blaming the heat here. The idea of primrose sprouting up through the lawn in a heavenly image. It too bad about the bulbs but focusing on growing a special collection inside your greenhouse seems a good strategy. I agree with prior commentators that your mystery plant is a Euphorbia milii – it’s frequently grown outside here and comes in a variety of colors.
It could be rather exciting having a collection of ‘special’ bulbs and alpines. Although I can see a time, not too far away actually, when I would need a much larger greenhouse..
Your garden is full of glorious colour and interest, even with Mouse Wars still raging! I love your new dark red Camellia, what a wonderful colour it is.
Reading your post is a bit like reading ‘A Christmas Carol’s ‘Ghost of Christmas yet to come’, Jessica, as you have flowers open that I am can still only dream of! I have been out today prodding my primroses and entreating them to hurry up, but to no avail – still tightly budded. Same for Camellias and lots more. I need to learn patience !!
I’m surprised we’re that far ahead.. it is far sunnier where you are. Perhaps it is something to do with the night time temperatures which are maybe higher here.
Oh dear–what a feast for the eyes: those amazing Camellias! They aren’t hardy in my northern climate. I tried to grow one in a pot and it kicked the dust within a few months. I’m debating trying again because I love Cameliias. But I should probably just enjoy them when I travel. Happy GBBD!
I push the boundaries of hardiness occasionally and usually end up coming to the same conclusion. There is only so much shifting of large pots in and out of cover that I can be bothered with.
Oh so sorry that those dratted squirrels have got the upper paw with regard to your bulb planting efforts Jessica 🙁 It is so disheartening to see the damage that they do. That white forsythia has been on my wish list for some time and I’m now adding the fritillaria to it. I hope that it proves to be Ptolemy proof.
No fritillary is Ptolemy proof unless there is a physical barrier in between. I remember the first time I brought three pots of them home from the garden centre.. £12 worth. I put the pots down outside the back door, just long enough to go and get changed and get the key to the tool shed.. by the time I returned two pheasants were tucking in. This one will need a place of safety, somewhere a pheasant never dares to tread!
I think you are wise to give up the bulb planting Jessica, at least you know that you gave them your best shot and there is many a gardener that would have given up after the first set back – I’m probably one of them!
It’s hard to think that the handsome Ptolemy is the root of some of your problems 🙂
Lovely blooms and the Abeliophyllum distichum, thank goodness for copy and paste, is gorgeous. I am only familiar with the yellow one. The new camellia is a stunner too. Nice choice. Happy Bloom Day Jessica.
I removed two huge thickets of yellow forsythia a couple of years back so I hope the Abeliophyllum is a bit easier to keep in check. It has a lovely scent.
I love your camellias, specially the gorgeous dark red one. Your Fritillary is fabulous and lovely C. George Baker. What a wonderful photo of Ptolemy, he is clearly posing.
Your mystery plant is intriguing. I don’ t think it is Euphorbia milii because they have thorny stems. I have a Plumeria; Frangipani which a friend brought me from Martinique. The stems and leaves are just the same but of course those flowers aren’ t frangipani flowers. I suppose it must be some sort of Euphorbia. But I can’ t imagine which one.
Having looked up E. milii I think you are right Chloris. The thorns seem quite pronounced but the stems of mine are smooth. I’ve looked through pages and pages of google images trying to find it but to no avail.
Such a lovely post and great pictures …. i particularly liked the wonderful photo of Ptolemy, it made me smile.
All the best Jan
Hi Jan, thanks and welcome to rusty duck.
A couple of years back the pheasants got really tame. They discovered the seed on the bird table and since then have been quite happy wandering about close to the house. As a gardener this is a mixed blessing of course!
You have lot happening. Camellia japonica ‘Adeyaka’ has great color–really nice. The white forsythia is new to me–also nice.
I hope the camellia will settle in. They seem to do well here, so should be OK. When we arrived the double one was in a tiny pot looking very sickly. I planted it out in the ground and it’s really taken off.
So envious. Our garden still resembles the Somme! X
Now it can’t be that bad! It’s certainly very soggy here still. We’re promised a dry week I think which won’t do any harm at all.
Love the spring flowers. We too have a family of pheasants roaming around our little valley. Ours don’t venture I to the garden though,thankfully. I love watching them roam around the fields.
As long as they don’t find the chicken feed..
I hope you find the name of the Euphorbia. Don’t you love a mystery?
I do. But ideally one that I can solve!
such a shame about your bulbs. Gosh your garden seems so advanced – maybe its due to your microclimate. I love the Fritillaria especially and agree that Ptolemy is adorable!
I have one clump of tulips left.. bulbs planted in a cage and with another cage of chicken wire covering them above ground. It’s not exactly aesthetically pleasing!
What rotten luck about the mice; I think I might start putting out traps if it were me.
We do need to get going again with the traps. There are just so many mice and voles, it’s impossible to keep up.
You fool succumbing to fritillaries, it is a slippery slope you know. You will end up like me with countless pots of bulbs and alpines and then one day you will declare enough already, if they cant survive in the garden they are out – I am tired of humouring their fobiles and keeping the mice and pheasants at bay. Then like me you will plant them out and move on in life!!!!!!! 🙂
Seriously though I do like the camellia in your first photo which is a wonderful dark burgandy/purple on my screen so yes you do need a new screen!
I know, I know. But pottering in the greenhouse when the weather is too bad to be gardening, isn’t that rather nice? Or am I just deluding myself?
Feel free to say “I told you so” in a year or two’s time!!
Oh I am jealous of all the blooms especially the muscari and Fritillaria….still snow here. Do you know I have never seen a camellia growing in person.
I hadn’t realised quite how borderline hardy camellias are. The flowers are certainly susceptible to frost here but I haven’t had one die on me yet (touch wood). You must be getting to the end of the snowy season now, I do hope so.
Oh how I envy your garden. I bought a very small camellia last year, and there are four flowers on it this year. I can’t smell them because I am struck down with Cornish flu. They do get rather battered by the rain. As for early Spring flowers. I always announce that I will plant them into pots, so that I can admire them from the doorstep, but never get round to it. I have one grape hyacinth in the garden. One. Last year there were dozens. I have noticed that the primroses are decorating the banks and verges of the lanes. They are so pretty.
Leanne xx
Pots can be quite labour intensive, especially the watering. I guess that’s the downside… and getting round to doing them in the first place.
Get well soon x
I recommend black snakes (or their equivalent to deal with the bulb pests). I guess we all have different pests to worry about. For us, it’s the rabbits that are the main problem ever since we put up the deer fence. That viburnum is quite a beauty!
Very few snakes here, sadly. The stoats do quite a good job though. And owls. We seem to have quite a population of owls.. I wonder why? 🙂 🙂
It seems suddenly very brown and unflowerful here after your post – I gardened a bit at the weekend but got much too distracted by the new lambs in the field adjacent to get anything serious done. Your pics have been a tonic this morning.
There are new lambs here too, I see them every morning when I go up to get the post. They’re very cute.. I just hope they don’t find the hole in the fence!
Not sure if anyone answered the flower that needs id but I think it’s a plumeria…I had one given to me that I gave back but I downsized my container plant collection. I could not believe I did not have you on my blog list…so now you are…but I feel that your plant is a plumeria…the flowers they use in hawaiian lays….or however, you spell it.
If I hadn’t seen the flowers I’d be absolutely convinced. But the blooms are nothing like plumeria and unscented. It’s SO frustrating.. is it possible to get a euphoria/plumeria cross I wonder!!
WHITE forsythia?!? You have blown my mind…
We are experiencing the earliest of springs here. Absolutely unbelievably, the snow is all gone, a month ahead of schedule! I can’t wait to post on the greening-up of the new back yard (and find out what survived the winter!)
That’s brilliant! Your growing season is so short, that is a real bonus. I hope it lasts and you don’t get any more snow.
The photo of the pheasant is simply amazing, and I love the white forsythia. I wonder if I can find it here…
Last year the pheasants got really tame and would come up to the bird table when we were filling the feeders. It made photographing them quite easy!
Hi Jessica….
What a lovely garden tour that was….truly beautiful!
The Primula is spectacular!
Enjoy your week…
Cheers!
Linda :o)
I wish you could see all the primula in the lanes, they are literally everywhere!
Your mystery plant certainly looks like plumeria, and your double camellia looks very much like my own ‘Mabel Bryan.’ Everything in your garden, including the pheasant, looks wonderful.
It does look like plumeria doesn’t it, apart from the flowers which are much more like euphorbia. The garden is starting to spring to life now, the days are warming up but nights are still cold (below freezing last night).
Ohh, camellia ‘Adeyaka’ is a stunner! I Googled it and got lots of different photos in all shades from darkest maroon through proper red to brightest pink. I guess it depends on camera settings and also on shade/sun when taken. I am sorry about your bulb trial, mice are really difficult to deal with. I have had good results with my trial with crocuses in containers with lots of bark mulch, turns out the squirrels are just as lazy as their reputation! Your orchid is a stunner too, I had to go back several times and look at it, was curious what it is – do you know? Looks kind of like a phalaenopsis but with too many petals 🙂
The orchid also came from my mother who was less than fastidious when it came to keeping plant labels! I think it is cymbidium, but as to the variety I have absolutely no idea! ‘Adeyaka’ seems to be deepening in colour as the flowers age, it’s a beautiful one.
Ptolemy and the mice will be laughing behind their wing/paws…. 🙂 What a shame that even your bulb cages didn’t help 🙁 Your camellias are lovely – always better when they are huge, of course – and thank you for introducing me to a WHITE forsythia…..
White forsythia is the common name, they are related but not that close.. different genus. I prefer it I think. It makes a bit of a change to all the yellow elsewhere in the garden.
I really love the white ‘forsythia’, it’s not a commonly seen plant – unlike it’s namesake! Now I’m fairly certain that the mystery plant is likely to be E. milii (Crown of Thorns). Thai gardeners love this plant – it’s an obsession for them (like snowdrops are for the English) and they have been responsible for breeding many thornless cultivars of the Crown of Thorns Euphorbia. The plants are certainly are tough as long as they are kept warm and humid 🙂
Matt, you are a star, thank you. I googled E.milii thornless and found my plant! It is Euphorbia millotii. Woo hoo!
What wonderful blooms. Your camellias are wonderful, I have tried to grow them here but we are just too cold in the winter and they die :(. Those darn mice, we wage war on them her and will be starting soon to keep the population in check ;). They seem to have, thus far, ignored my autumn bulb planting which are all now starting to shoot. They are all of course avid blog readers and reading this they will be scouring my garden chewing everything in sight…………I recently discovered, by chance, that mice do not like peppermint oil not sure how you would use it tho’ 🙂
Thanks for the tip on peppermint oil… I may well try that in the greenhouse. Under glass the aroma should be concentrated, as long as the gardener isn’t repelled as well!
Oh good Jessica and well done Matt and I’m relieved I wasn’t totally wrong with my precipitant naming of the mystery plant. Although to be honest I hadn’t spotted its lack of thorns in your beautiful photos but there again when I first looked at the photo of Ptolemy in the same post I thought he was knitted. In Blogland nothing would surprise me.
It was a tough one and I didn’t have a clue what it was. Leaves and stems like plumeria, flowers more like euphorbia. You were a lot closer!
Ptolemy is heading for being strung up, if he nibbles any more of my blooms it’s a certainty!
Do you have a blog Sarah? I’d happily follow you back if you do.
I have always wanted to have camellias in my garden over the years but it is one plant that has never quite ended up in the trolley. They are beautiful and such wonderful colour to break up the dark corners of the garden. Sorry about the mice, they are little blighters aren’t they. Your pheasant is a handsome bird I must say! Take care xx
The mice are indeed little blighters, they make gardening a very frustrating experience.