Last Day of 2023

Mystery Orchid blooms again.

New orchid display in the master bath.

 

 

It has been several years since this "roadside" orchid bloomed--in fact, it has been in decline for a long time. But a few weeks back I noticed a blooming spike emerging from a new shoot, and the flowers started to open just a few days after Christmas--what a treat for the end of a difficult year! 

As soon as the flowers opened, I moved it to the master bath for a change in the display. I hope this will be the beginning of a good period of growth and bloom for this strange little orchid I bought at a roadside stand during a trip to Florida many years ago.

 

New mosaic, Carolina wren with nest

I finished a new mosaic just before Christmas--a Carolina wren with her nest. I need to complete one more mosaic before grouting both, and am trying to decide which bird to tackle next--a pair of bluebirds maybe? I'm running out of certain colors, but there's still plenty of blue tiles left, so that's a possibility.

Tree Peony (Paeonia suffruticosa)

 But I also must paint some new botanical pieces for upcoming spring shows. Here's a photo of the watercolor I'm currently working on--a lovely tree peony I came across at Blandy Farm, photographed last spring. It's still a ways from being finished. I need to finish this one and do one more painting, of what, I've yet to decide.

 

Red impatiens with Meyer lemon.

Houseplants in foyer.

Here's a few more houseplants brightening the foyer--a red New Guinea Impatiens, assorted begonias, a pepper vine and a night-blooming Cereus that has yet to bloom. Maybe it'll bloom later this spring, after it's been outdoors for a while? One can always dream, and this is a good season to dream of next year's garden. Happy New Year!

Christmas 2023

Christmas lights for 2023.

 

Every year I take photos of our outdoor Christmas decorations. I thought it would be appropriate to post this on the shortest day of the year--the Winter Solstice. I can't wait for the days to begin to get longer again!

This year hasn't been one to go all out on spending, so I used the strings of lights accumulated over the years--it's not even a fraction of all that we have, but it was all I had the energy to do this year. It's not what I would call outstanding, but festive enough.

 

 

A nice picture postcard snow would help, wouldn't it? But there's nothing in the forecast to indicate we'll get any snow before next year. Our neighbors across the street have gone all out in the lighting department--Herb says that it's the Chinese Restaurant theme! It is pretty, though.

 

Our neighbors across the street.

I keep telling myself that there will be better years ahead... Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

December Bloom Day

 

Streptocarpus '7007'

It's the fifteenth of the month again, when we post what is blooming in our gardens and link to Carol Michel's blog May Dreams Garden. December isn't offering any blooms in my outdoor garden, but there are a few in my indoor gardens (which are spread out through my house). The Streptocarpus '7007' above is the best-looking specimen of several I've reproduced by cuttings from one I bought years ago. My other variety of Streptocarpus below is 'Wow' offering just one bloom so far.

 

Streptocarpus 'Wow'

The orchids in the master bath continue to bloom, as well as the African violet (Saintpaulia hybrid). Another orchid that had gone into decline is sporting a new blooming spike--I don't know if this is an indication of its dying swan song or if it's going to come back stronger.  As a devoted gardener, I shall hope!

Orchids blooming in the master bath.

Orchid with flowering spike developing.

 

My indoor collection has expanded over the years with more tender succulents. Among them the Moses-in-the-cradle or Purple Heart (Tradescantia pallida) is the only one blooming.

 

 

Succulents in my foyer.

Moses-in-the-cradle (Tradescantia pallida)

My Thanksgiving cactus has finished blooming, but has a few more buds developing, so it will probably have another flush of bloom in a week or two. Since I learned from Carol that mine is a Thanksgiving cactus and not a Christmas cactus, I too am on the lookout for a real Christmas cactus specimen.

These African violets are from a set of 'Optimara' hybrids I've had for over forty years. I used to have six different colors but with time, only two varieties have survived. It's hard to keep these healthy, as they are very susceptible to spider mites as well as mealy bug (the plague of my outdoor garden!).

I routinely spray these and other houseplants with insecticidal soap, but it seems that no matter how much I spray, some insects survive and start to multiply right after.

 

Vintage African violet 'Optimara' hybrids.

Not exactly blooms, but this is a view of the balcony overlooking my two-story foyer. The south-facing light here is so favorable, I overwinter some plants along with some exotic tropicals that stay here year-round. The two large-leaved small trees are young mamey seedlings (Pouteria sapote) grown from seeds that a friend sent me. There's a saying in Cuba that a Cuban will walk a mile for a mamey, and I miss this delicious fruit more than anything else I left behind sixty-some years ago. It tickles my fancy to try to grow these small trees even if I know they are not likely to ever bloom or produce fruit.

Plants on the balcony overlooking the two-story foyer.

My Bearss lime, on the other hand, is setting a lot of fruit right now--it has been faithfully producing about a dozen limes or more every year for the past ten years or so. I recently acquired a Meyer lemon tree, but I expect it will take a few years to start producing fruit.

Bearss lime setting fruit.

There is no sign outdoors of any of the snowdrops or other bulbs I planted this fall--wait a minute, it is still technically fall until the solstice on Dec. 22!  But that's about it for December. I wonder what the New Year will bring?

New Artworks

Fragrant Pinesap (Montropsis odorata), watercolor on vellum, 10" x 8"

 

I finally finished this piece and submitted it to ASBA's juried exhibition "Curious Allies." It's my hope that it will be selected by the jurors, but who knows? The competition is very tough. It's the first pieces I've done on this very expensive medium of botanical vellum, and it was particularly difficult because the vellum is not white, but a warm cream color. In order to bring out some highlights, I used Titanium white watercolor.

This painting is a re-statement of a watercolor I did in 2017 after visiting Kentucky's Daniel Boone National Forest where I encountered this very rare plant of the Monotropa family. These plants are mycotrophic, that is, they have no cholorophyll, and like fungi, they must rely on other plants to supply the nutrients they need. I've been fascinated by these botanical oddities ever since I came across some ghost pipe flowers on a Fourth of July in Maryland many years ago. I wish I could find more of these species but the majority are found only in the western part of our country.

 

Goldfinch mosaic, 8" x 8" before grouting.

Just for fun, I did another small mosaic of two goldfinches--I purchased a mosaic starter kit after I took Anne Atkin's workshop at the Red House, thinking this is a wonderful distraction from more serious art! After I finished it, I traveled to Richmond to meet with Anne so that she could teach me how to grout this mosaic and the one I'd done at the workshop, where there was no time for this last finishing step.

My two mosaics after grouting.

Grouting is a messy task and probably best done outdoors, but Anne had prepped me beautifully; I brought two drop cloths (one for the table and one for the floor) and several plastic containers for the water and grout so we could work indoors. Once we were done, we just picked up the plastic drop cloths and grout bucket and tossed it in the trash. The mosaics sure do look different once they've been grouted!

 

Blandy's Wetlands in November, watercolor, 11" x 14"

The weather was still warm in early November, and some of the Blandy Sketch Group decided to have one last plein aire session. I wasn't able to join them on the particular day, but I went by the afternoon before and painted this watercolor of the wetlands seen from the back forty. It was a bit breezier than I expected, and once the sun started going down it got chilly, but I had enough down that I could finish this one at home the next day.

November Bloom Day

'Queen Charlotte' violet

 

By mid-November there aren't a whole lot of flowers outdoors in my Zone 6b Virginia garden to celebrate Bloom Day on the 15th of the month (hosted by Carol Michel's May Dreams Garden blog). My 'Queen Charlotte' violets are among the few flowers that persist this late in the season. There would be none if I didn't cover them with a wire cloche because the deer like to eat them ( I remove the cover to photograph them). 

 

Aromatic aster (Symphyotrichum oblongifolium)

Aromatic asters among the leaves.

 

Some blooms persist on the aromatic asters even after the first few frosts, but it's the leaves that are most colorful at this time of the year. I love the colors of the trees in the woods behind my house! This shot was taken a few days ago, most of these are native oaks. The hickories have lost most of their leaves.

 

The woods in early morning.

 A few shrubs in my garden are still colorful too, like this dwarf Nandina that doesn't fruit (I've forgotten the name of this variety), and the Viburnum 'Brandywine'.

 

Nandina

Viburnum 'Brandywine'

 

The witchhazels in the back woods are also blooming at this time, although two other varieties in my garden don't bloom until late winter or early spring.

Native witchhazel trees in the woods.

My back yard in November.

To make up for the lack of flowers outside, there are plenty of blooms in my indoor garden. The  yellow hibiscus my sister gave me is still offering a flower or two after being brought indoors. I brought in the white heliotrope plant hoping to keep it alive during the winter for a larger plant next summer. The begonias next to them are among the plants I keep alive indoors from year to year to decorate the back deck in summer.

Yellow hibiscus

White heliotrope with begonias in back

One of the small Phalaenopsis orchids I bought for one of my botanical art classes a few years ago decided to re-bloom for the first time, along with a miniature Dendrobium. The two orchids in the master bath are usually very prolific with their blossoms--I can't believe they're blooming for the second time this year!

Phalaenopsis orchid in bloom.

Dendrobium orchid

Orchids in the bathroom.

My Bearss lime tree is covered in blooms too, and setting fruit.

 

Bearss lime blossoms

 That's about it for November's Bloom Day.

Drove to the Bog, But the Bog Was Dry

Splinter Hill Bog in Alabama.

 

In October I attended the annual American Society of Botanical Artists (ASBA) Conference, which this year was held in Mobile, AL. One of the activities that interested me the most was a day of botanical sketching at the famous Splinter Hill Bog, about an hour north of the city. We were informed that this area, which normally has the highest amount of rainfall in the nation, had been in drought conditions all summer, with no measurable rainfall in months. The bog was as dry as it could be!

The Nature Conservancy, which owns this preserve, does prescribed burns periodically in order to maintain the condition of this Long-leaf pine savannah, and had done one in early March. The Long-leaf pine bark is resistant to fire, and the pitcher plants have underground rhizomes that allow them survive these burns, but they die to the ground and need rain to sprout back, and that hadn't happened much this year.

Before going out to find the plants we were to sketch, Judy Stout, a volunteer with the Mobile Botanic Garden, spoke to us about the specific plant communities found in this unique bog, and passed around some drawings to explain how the pitcher plants trap their insect food. She then demonstrated by splitting one of the pitcher plant leaves to show us the insects inside in different stages of being digested.

Insects inside a pitcher plant leaf.

Walking into the bog.

 

 We walked around for a bit looking at the White-topped pitcher plants (Sarracenia leucophylla) for which this site is most famous; unfortunately many of them were brown and dry. We saw another type of pitcher plant--a decumbent variety, Sarracenia rosea, as well as a clubmoss with fruiting stems on their ends. There were no sundews (Drosera genus) anywhere to be seen, it had been too dry for these plants to regenerate.

 

White-topped pitcher plants (Sarracenia leucophylla)

Decumbent pitcher plant (Sarracenia rosea)

Clubmoss with lighter fruiting stems on top (Lycopodium alopecuroides)

 

There were many other wildflowers typical of the fall season blooming that I could identify by genus, but getting the right species is another matter: purple Gerardia (Agalinis purpurea), swamp sunflowers (Helianthus angustifolia), wild ageratum (Conoclinium coelestinum), four-sided milkwort (Polygala cruciata), a tiny Lobelia (Lobelia ? ), a very narrow-leaved goldenrod and a yellow flower with pinked petals (tickseed?). 

Purple gerardia (Agalinis purpurea)

Swamp sunflowers and Pineland bogbuttons (Lauchnocaulon anceps)

Wild ageratum (Conoclinium coelestinum)

One curious flower called Pineland bogbuttons (Lachnocaulon anceps) was completely new to me, and I couldn't begin to identify any of the grasses that carpeted the long-leaf pine savannah, I'll leave that to experts.

Lobelia syphillitica?

Four-sided milkwort (Polygala cruciata) and my sketch side by side.

Very narrow-leaved Goldenrod

Tickseed (Coreopsis linifolia?)

Bracken fern with no ID flower stalks

There was so much to see and explore it was hard to settle down to sketching, but I finally did, and chose to sketch some of the abundant White-topped pitcher plants. I found one dry pitcher plant flower in the morning. 

 

White-topped pitcher plant sketches.

 

After our lunch break, we switched instructors to continue, and Lara Call Gastinger, pointed me toward one lone pitcher plant flower that still had some of its vivid colors, although the petals had fallen. I wanted to include this in my pitcher plant sketches, since the flower has such peculiar structures.

 

Dried pitcher plant flower.

White-topped pitchers

Colorful Pitcher plant flower

My sketch of the pitcher plant flower

 

A little before three in the afternoon, we were rounded up to share our day's work and get ready to go back in the bus that had brought us here from Mobile. It was fascinating to see what everyone else had done--I wish I could have photographed every one of the sketchbooks, but here's a sampling of some.

Sketches from the class

More class sketches

Lara Call Gastinger's sketchbook

Another sketchbook with purple gerardia and pineland bogbutton flowers.

All day I'd worn my Wellington boots, thinking they'd keep my feet dry--and the bog was so dry I didn't need them at all!

On the drive back home from Mobile a few days later, I stopped by the bog again, to allow my friend and travel companion Ann to see it. This time, since we weren't sketching, I had a chance to walk further into the preserve, and found another type of pitcher plant I hadn't seen a few days before -- the Parrot pitcher plant (Sarracenia psittacina), which I identified thanks to my visit to the Mobile Botanic Gardens and their miniature bog, which had been watered regularly. They had some lovely sundews in there too.

The distinct species of pitcher plants at the Splinter Hill Bog have hybridized over time and one can see so many variations in color and hybrids sporting the characteristics of two or more species... what a fabulous natural laboratory! Oddly enough, no one has done a comprehensive botanical survey of all of the plants found at this location; I hope eventually some enterprising young botanists will do just that.

 

Parrot pitcher plant (Sarracenia psittacina)

I'd love to return to this beautiful bog some day, and see it in its full glory.