Our tree As a member of the Society, and at our president, Carol's, informal request at the last virtual meeting, I'm pleased to share my garden-themed Christmas ornaments.  I also took the liberty of showing my poinsettia-themed wrapping paper (from Hallmark) and gift tags with flowers.  Picture how thrilled your fourteen-year-old son would be to have a camellia tag on his latest XP 360 game.  The things my children bear having me as their mother. I've written about our tree before, and why I'm sorry it isn't real.  Just can't do it with the allergies. I also included some of my birds.  I found twelve, new red ones this year at Horn's Seed and Nursery, along with the decorations on our front door which I used in an Examiner post.  If you're looking for that special something for your gardener, I also wrote about finding more garden-themed ornaments at Examiner...

If you said yes, raise your hand so I can see it. I sure didn't.  Of course, I know about the Texas Rose Rustlers.  By now, who hasn't heard of those intrepid souls sneaking into cemeteries and clambering over abandoned homesteads, taking clippings here and there, thus saving antique and heirloom roses from disaster? I'm always a sucker for a good story. In an unexpected Christmas package containing a Crinum bulbispermum, Orange River lily, from Curtiss Ann, there was information from Lushlife Nurseries about "Cemetery Lilies."  Crinums were quite the fashion in the 1950s, and with their bright pink, purple and red blooms, of course they were.  According to Lushlife, horticulturists worked throughout the decade to create bigger and better flowering varieties.  Many of these were planted along Highway 301 in South Carolina in the rusting courtyards of abandoned motor courts or motels. In her new Alabama home, Curtiss Ann...

Welcome to Frigid Friday hosted by Mr. McGregor's Daughter.  It's a balmy 25F in Oklahoma today, and we are supposed to reach a new high of 46F by this afternoon (the warmest temperature all week).  This is a far cry from yesterday's low of 9F at my house.  In Edmond, Oklahoma, it hovered around 14F which shows what a different micro-climate I have. We did go above freezing yesterday, but tell that to the plants.  Remember my head cold from hell last week?  Due to fog brain, I forgot to move the Agave americana, and it may not survive.  The others were close to the house, but they don't look too good either. Neither the agaves, nor I like weather this unseasonable.  However, the "pip pip" of the Cardinals and their bright red plumage is abundant and brings good cheer. The weather is worse for HH, who owns a paving...

Some roses are simply easy to love.  Rosa chinensis 'Old Blush', supposedly hardy to USDA Zone 6 (and definitely to Zone 7a), goes by many different monikers, including 'Parson's Pink China' (as it is still known in England), "Old Pink Daily," "Daisy Rose," and "Common Monthly."  As a shrub and in its climbing sport, it is one of my best garden performers. As Thomas Christopher, author of In Search of Lost Roses, writes in Roses: A Celebration, "The clustered blossoms, casual three-inch cups of clear pink petals, though lovely, lack the elegance of a modern hybrid tea, but they also have the virtue of persistence." Living out in the country, where the wind whips over the plains, there is nothing I like better in a rose than persistence. A story I once read stated this rose was called 'Common Monthly' by settlers because, as they brought it west, it bloomed...