A few things blooming in winter

 Winter is actually one of my favorite times of year for blooming things. Sure the roses are basically dormant and so are a lot of the bulbs but the 'queen' of the winter garden is the camellia.

'Debutante'

There's only a few flowers on this bush and if it had more sun/light and fertilizer the flower would be as big as my palm. I know, I've seen them at the nursery. I remember growing up and my mom had a special 'camellia' bowl that she would float the flowers in. We also had gardenias in the summer and floated those as well. Whoever helped my dad and mom plant our yard they knew what they were doing because everything on the property tolerated a shady acid situation. Or sunny depending on where it was. More on that later.

Camellias are spectacularly varied and range blooming time from November to January and into February sometimes. Yuletide and other sasanqua varieties bloom in the fall, followed by the japonica types like Debutante in winter/spring. They love a partial shade situation with room for their surface roots to spread and an acidic soil condition. Sasanquas can tolerate more sun than the japonicas, just look at their leaves. Small leaves means they don't need as much surface area to get sunlight where the larger japonica leaves have larger leaves to absorb as much light as possible. 

All shades of red, pink, white with stripes or spots, small as your thumb and as big as your hand. There are yellow varieties but they are very rare and usually for collectors. There is no blue though there are really deep red varieties that when bruised have a bit of purple in them. Blue/purple just isn't in their genetic history.

Did you know you could grow your own tea? Yes indeed, camellia sinensis is the variety that green tea leaves come from. When someone says a flower has a 'tea' fragrance, this is the flower that comes from.

'Camellia sinensis'

The flower is actually only about a half inch across but opens a bit wider so that give you an idea of how small it is. The leaves are also small as this is a more sun tolerant variety as you may have seen. Acres of tea plants growing on the hillsides of Thailand, Japan and China and other places in the East. They need very well draining, organic and rich acidic soil. Needless to say they never did well when we had them in the nursery. They would end up with brown splotches on the margins of the leaves due to our alkaline water. If you correct that they can grow happily in a container for years. Oh the little black spots in the stamens are ants getting the nectar from the flower. They love sasanqua flowers because they're all open face and easy to get to. So do bees.

Another plant that, at least in my area, that blooms now is Rosemary. It thinks it's spring, like they do and a lot of other plants.

Prostrate rosemary

Now if you notice this is a trimmed bush, given it's own habits this would be about five or six feet wide  all around. I know, I've seen it. There was a house in our neighborhood that had a huge bank of it and boy did it bloom in the spring/winter! There are all types of rosemary now that are all edible. DO NOT buy 'Coast Rosemary' thinking it is this. It is not. it is Westringia rosmarinifolia (rosemary- like foliage). Some people have made that mistake just because of the common name.

I'm out taking a walk around the block now for exercise so am able to get pictures of things not in my complex. Another plant I have mentioned as being a scourge is Morning Glory.... yeah what I call the 'kudzu of the west'. Look it up...I've mentioned it before.

Here it is taking over an acacia hedge. It is likely planted on the other side along a fence... yeah it does that. It'll be gorgeous in the summer when it's in bloom but it's basically taking over a hedge that was doing fine on it's own. 

Being in an urban/city environment doesn't have many opportunities or variety of plants but everything has a story and points I can talk about. 

The weather is still clear and cold overnight, a little breeze and hoping for some cloud cover over the weekend soon. We need more rain though the mountains got some great snowpack so that's a bonus.

Keep on walking, keep on walking....