Charlotte's Garden: 07/01/2005

Variegated Kumquat tree

Variegated fanatic gone wild....

I am a self proclaimed variegated plant freak. I cant help it, when I see a variegated form of even the most abundant plant in my garden it finds its way into my trunk. Theres a majic porthole from my eyes to my trunk and variegated plants open it. Ok so I have been reading to much Harry Potter lately. But I noticed that even taking pictures of whats left of the garden after this summers excessive rains I tend to gravitate to the variegated plants. Some old favorites like the variegated Hydrangea (no garden with any shade should be without them)and some newly found treasures like my variegated Penta I ran into at ace hardware... my husband didnt even say anything, he just picked them up and put them into the basket as he set my dropped jaw back in place with his hand and shook his head. And I cant forget the variegated cape jasmine that Home depot had tagged as Variegated gardenia ( at least I think its a cape jasmine I still havent seen it bloom to verify it) But who needs blooms when your variegated anyway thats just overkill isnt it! And theres even more I didnt post the pictures of like my variegated Jack frost ligustrum and variegated nasturtiums9they looked terrible by the way, WAY too much water!) And that little variegated groundcover I couldnt remember the names of and my variegated Tri color jasmine and my variegated Aung Yo jasmine and my variegated angels trumpet now those still look great with all the rain (yes I said those meaning I have more than one and any gardener knows that means not two but three)oh and then theres my other new favorite my variegated abutilion (didnt like the rain either)... you get the picture? Excessive is the word. The sad part is theres still more out there wating to find me... I saw a variegated Bananna tree in my stokes tropicals book that really wants to live with me. Hmmm... Whre to put another bananna tree.

the cut back dilema...

My Tibouchina is making me crazy!

These three Tibouchinas I transplanted from my old house when we moved, I love the large purple flowers. But I really put them too close...I knew better i knew they got large but I had them planted in partial shade last time and they only got about three or four feet wide and tall. Maybe it was becouse normally I would have trimmed them and they would be a nice tidy size for the summer bloom not overbearing giants. But you could hardly get out in the yard this summer for the rain! Every aftrnoon anothe hour or four or five of rain! So this year they got a little, ok alot out of hand I havent trimmed them since February when they had to be taken down to the ground after winter. Now look at them... if I hadnt waited all year for these stinkin blooms those plants would so be half their size! You cant even see the bottlebrush tree thats 5ft high behind them! That is so NOT the picture I had painted of the pretty red bloomed tree surrounded by a sea dark purple bloosomes. oh well at least something liked all the rain!

You can smell them from the door!

Butterfly Ginger in full bloom now.

I LOVE butterfly ginger, in fact I haven't ever found a ginger I don't love. Few plants give more returns for your labor than gingers. They come back year after year reliably for me in the garden and make great cut flowers, most of them last for months. The worst thing I can say about them is that they tend to multiply a little too fast. Multiply too fast who can complain about that? Ok think canna Lilly on plant steroids at the edge of a pond, now times that by about a trillion and you have butterfly ginger with to much rain. If I lived just 30 minutes south of here I would use them as a fence my Moms stay evergreen in her yard now you really cant beat that...they smell sooo good!