Month: December 2022

Even by tempestuous mountain weather standards, this has been a wild month to close out the year. At the end of last week, temperatures dipped to zero, with a blustery wind chill of minus 25. This must be hard on wildlife, and to be honest is not my favorite walking weather. This week it ranged… Continue reading Toothwort’s Winter Leaves

At first glance, this looks like a Christmas tree with an unusual holiday decoration. But this eastern hemlock does not make a good holiday tree since it tends to lose its needles soon after it is cut. And the fluffy white balls are not ornaments but the hemlock woolly adelgid, an invasive species quickly leading… Continue reading Unwelcome Christmas Guests

Every year at this time the North American Rock Garden Society seed exchange list arrives, and I always pore over it way too long making a wish list of plants to populate my garden. Over the years I’ve found many treasures, an inexpensive way to try assorted plants in my many gardens. Earlier this week… Continue reading Exuberant Endangered Petunia

Though my garden has been pretty quiet lately, one of my Camellia shrubs is just beginning to bloom this week. Although the majority of my plants are native, my interest in camellias goes back to my first garden. I had no idea when I moved to central North Carolina in the early 1990’s that it… Continue reading December Blooms

In a forest full of bare branches, beech and oak trees are the exception, clinging to slowly tattering tan leaves. On windy days, their leaves blow back and forth like tiny banners. In this photograph these dry beech leaves clinging to branches hold on in a process known as marcescence, and the trees are called… Continue reading Marcescence