I bought this bush in Charlotte several years ago. Ann and I were wandering around. Not really shopping. But, open to the possibility of finding something interesting to take home with us. And this odd plant with lots of fuzzy cluster flowers and no leaves grabbed my attention and came home with me.
It blooms at the end of winter and smells divine. It’s very much a sign of impending Spring.
After that, it’s just a big green lump until it drops its leaves in Autumn.
The display when mine blooms next to the ‘Yuletide’ camellia (which insists on blooming in February despite its name) rocks my socks.
My first hellebores were a gift from my friend, Randy. His patch was getting out of hand and he asked if I wanted the ones he was about to take out of the path they were creeping in to. I was delighted to have something that likes shade.
The patch has spread nicely and they are among the first to bloom in early February. The rest of the year, they have low, evergreen foliage. (It’s not really “evergreen.” It just never goes dormant and makes new foliage All. The. Time.
They cross pollinate like crazy and spread consistently. I originally thought Randy was a little nuts to buy new ones. But, it gets new genes into the mix. I have bought one that was mostly white with a little pink edging for that very reason. The originals were purple and yellow.
There’s a debate about whether to cut them back or not. And, if you do, when. The flowers are obvious as you walk by an untrimmed patch. But, not highly visible from a distance. In part, because they are the same height as the older leaves and not brightly colored.
I have been experimenting. (Duh.) If you cut the green back, it’s easier to see the flowers. If you don’t, you let them feed themselves more. (Also, duh.) So…when is best?
After several years of leaving them to their own devices, in February of 2024, as they started to bloom, I cut back all the leaves, letting me see the flowers better. And the greenery came back, fully, for the rest of the year. I trimmed it all back again in November. I think the flowers are less full this Spring.
I think I’ll trying cutting them again on a nice day in January of ’26, leaving the leaves (ha!) until the last minute.
We have 2 fig bushes in our yard. We started with a Brown Turkey fig, which seems to be the one most frequently grown in our area. Perhaps it’s the one most frequently sold. But, a few years ago (in 2018), I was going to Big Bloomers Flower Farm in Sanford for my semiregular plant purchase and Chuck suggested that I see if they had a different variety, just for curiosity.
They did. And, I believed I was getting Texas Everbearing. Which would have looked very much like a Brown Turkey. I couldn’t tell that just looking at the little bush in the pot and “everbearing” sounded wonderful.
It took 3 years to get fruit. It is NOT a Texas Everbearing. These figs almost stay green, turning barely yellow when ripe. And they taste like figs. Not observably different from the Brown Turkeys. I suspect it’s a Florentine. But, when I asked what other varieties they had ever carried, Big Bloomers ignored me.
The chair I have usually used in our living room was a hand-me-down from my parents. It was a good chair that they bought when they lived near Hickory, NC, probably 35 years ago. In that time, it has been through half a dozen moves. The upholstery was worn out, the cushion was flat, the wood needed refinishing and it looked like I’d pulled it out of a dumpster. (Not that I’m above pulling something out of a dumpster. That’s how we got the Victrola cabinet we ust to store our liquor.) In short, it was worn out and we had gotten as much use out of it as we cared to.
I don’t really need all new stuff all the time. Our sofa cost $20 at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore in Durham. And a lot of our furniture has been bought from second hand stores or passed along.
But, there’s used and there’s worn out.
So, I bought myself a recliner that rocks, swivels and lies all the way back.
The thing about recliners that you don’t always think about is that they can’t be as close to the wall as other furniture if you want to actually recline.
So, everything is a little out of place and I’m trying to figure out how to shift it around in a way that doesn’t require me to rehang the art, allows me to see the bird feeder out the front window and that works for the usual use of my space.
I am the Audience 