I hope the book is happening. I love your writing- I feel like I can almost see things you have planted. Don't be sad. I am putting up a little camellia whimsy I did the other day by by door. How can you say they look plastic Campanula?

its the leaves, Kitty, plus the weird way they seem to flatly lie all over the bush surface. Of course, I never get to see them grown in the ground, just in pots and generally, they look awful - pale yellow, blotchy and pallid and often, because they are never watered enough over the summer, the buds fail to develop and stay on the bush.
Altogether different to seeing them grown in a more natural environment.
And you KNOW how insanely picky I am.

I saw a species camellia at the UC Berkeley Botanical Garden and thought it was the most beautiful and graceful thing. Suzy, you would have loved it! The leaves, flowers and growth habit were so different from the cultivars, and after many years I've never forgotten that sight.

Ingrid

Are you thinking of the ones that have been clipped hard to resemble topiary or hedges? I prefer the natural small tree but even the naturally bushy ones don't have to be cut with hedge trimmers. Here's Tiffany from my side yard under a bottlebrush tree that hummingbirds like to nest in. The flowers hang down very sweetly. I put up a spectacular species camellia picture on the camellia forum from the Huntington of Camellia rosiflora behind a regal sculpture on a pedestal. That plant is so graceful in its shape and the way it carries its small flowers. Mine are just small 5 gallon plants now and are already beginning to show the graceful habit of that large one.

My taste in camellias is the same as my taste in roses- I like all sizes and shapes.

I planted a weeping santa rosa plum before the rain came. I gave it a prime spot in the front. I hope I can train it correctly. I dug my holes for the roses in transit so I can plant them this weekend.

One of my favorite roses is Tiffany and so is one of my favorite camellias. Here's a closeup.

What else is blooming in everyone's gardens? I still have Tangerines, a few peach blossoms, some plum blossoms, violets, and a few daffodils. The pansies and violas are blooming in the potted roses and I am still waiting on sweet peas.

Here is a link that might be useful: rosiflora

Hello, Suzy!
Well, what happened is that we had a forecast of several days of snow, and since I was tired of being at home anyway I thought I couldn't make a better use of my time than to take a trip of a few days and see some of the sights of northern Italy. I went to Brescia for a day, then hopped on the train again to go to that art treasurehouse Padua, where I spent two days looking at churches, museums, and other lovely things. I've wanted for some years to go to Padua, suspecting that there were a lot of good things to see there, and the city lived up to my expectations. Oh, and the Botanical Garden ("Orto Botanico") of Padua is wonderful, even in February and on a chilly gray day. I froze as I walked about and I didn't care. This was the first botanical garden in Europe and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, but besides this, it is a very beautiful, very friendly, welcoming place for plants and for those who love them.
I got back yesterday in a white landscape; last night another ten inches of snow fell, just in time to cause maximum confusion for the national elections that take place today and tomorrow. Putting aside for the moment the future of Italy (these elections are REALLY important), after tomorrow temperatures are supposed to rise and one can hope that the worst of winter will finally be behind us. I've seen winters where more snow has fallen than this year (I think) but I've never seen one where we've had snow on the ground for so long a time.
Let's hear it for spring!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh yes, I have been writing some essays.
Melissa

oh yeah, we are watching the elections here too - dunno what to think though (apart from they do things differently in Italy).
Wish we had an insulating layer of snow - the vicious nor'easterlies just blow the sparse flakes away, leaving the frozen ground. So, nothing doing apart from more hopeful seed sowing (default mode for horrible weather). Have also chosen this grim time of year to give up smoking - although not entirely, since I now have an e.cigarette (which I refer to as 'my puffer') and menthol flavoured nicotine extract. Nonetheless, this handy piece of kit has definitely sorted one of my least attractive habits of dangling the end of a roll-up off my lip whilst getting down to mindless weeding.
I am also a bit paralysed by the miserable weather since I am horribly conflicted about where my efforts should be directed - to the horsebox obviously, but as it is parked at our allotment, it reqires trudging down there, carting hand tools (no electricity) and working in a large, gloomy, horsey shed. In the meantime, have decided to get at least one more year of vegetables out of the allotment and cut back on stuff like bell peppers which normally grow under glass (since I won't be around to water them every day). Any spare funds has been allocated for chainsaw safety and tree felling, so my garden has to be contructed entirely from seeds and divisions so I am taking a very long term view and sowing a lot of woodland plants (aster cordifolius, glaucidium palmatum....and primula, many primula...and campanulas, white willowherbs, my beloved umbellifers including a black leaved angelica, various geraniums, mertensis, pulmonarias and so on. I will try and collect local tree seeds once on site. I will be leaving my roses in situ for this summer and starting the moving in winter, so I will keep the allotment going with the help of my eldest, while all the garden pots are going to Norfolk, where my daughter will take them.....urk! I am dreading it all and am somewhat in denial, not least about living in a horsebox! Still, 5 acres!
Glad to see you getting down to business. Funnily enough, my family frequently urge me to take up a literary career (as if) but whilst I have no problems wittering on (at tedious length) here on GW, I cannot imagine ever having the discipline to write about anything without punctuating it with silly little anecdotes, tales of domestic horrors or moaning at Mr.Campanula and assorted offspring - therefore of interest and relevance to me alone. I thought (fleetingly) of blogging but all those pictures!!! Having a confessional tendency is very american (so we are told) but of limited interest to anyone else apart from my mum (who is not even alive so that's that).

Campanula, I don't remember if I've already said this, I may only have thought about it, but you really should write for a paper. I know it's hard to have to submit something on a regular basis (a friend was completely paralyzed by the ordeal to write a weekly column and quit after less than a month) but perhaps you could make an agreement with some paper to make irregular contributions. It would be even better if you wrote a book and this way you could pick your best pieces. Many of the posts here would make a good beginning.

Campanula, your "wittering" (love that term) is what makes your posts so interesting! I think people love this sort of thing, brings some humanity to the writing.

Hope you will think about this!
ogrose

Oh you sweeties, you say the nicest stuff, Mariannese and Ogrose. Thing is though, one of the most enjoyable things about belonging to a forum such as GW, is the gentle intimacy which has accumulated over years of writing for friends. Although I joined GW in 2003, I only became active on the ARF over the last few years. Many of us have internet relationships which stretch back over years and years.......and this familiarity, more than any skill or literary ability, often tends to give substance to our posts. Even the most reticent amongst us has their own distinctive voice and style. Moreover, we have made a choice to be receptive to each other's posts because we already have a great deal of common ground. Nonetheless, it is hugely pleasurable to be able to have a conversation with like-minded people (having bored my family into stunned compliance while my friend's have escaped over some far plantless horizon).

Re: internet relationships, I shall remind my best internet chum that we've just entered our 18th year of e-mail correspondence. We began mailing each other late in 1995 after I've asked about a hardy white climber on rec.gardens.roses, one of the earliest garden forums, without realizing that we were both Swedes. We meet occasionally and exchange plants or he comes to graft another apple variety on my apple trees. His own single tree has eight varieties on it.

Campanula,

Yes you could and should write a book. If an extensive and complex format does not appeal to you, write each chapter as a separate essay. I believe that is the format that Beverley Nichols used and he is still being read 70 years later. It would be good for your business., advertising you know. You could be another Beth Chatto, Rosemary Verey, Helen Dillon or Vita Sackville-West (don't choke) but you get the picture. However, you are building a new house, establishing a new five acre garden without running water and without central heat and in addition you have clients for whom you garden. You have a lot on your plate right now. Prudence suggests waiting a bit but since Prudence will not be doing the writing, it is up to you.

Cath

The story of a garden is always interesting to people who have given their lives to building one. And so often, we hardly know the gardeners. Their gardens get passed on and the details of their lives are lost. I love a grand garden that has a staff to make it perfect, but just as beloved to me is the small, personal garden given life by the dedication of a few or often one gardener alone. It's amazing really what can be created by one person with a busy life.

Cath, because this is such a pivotal (and frankly, quite terrifying time) I do feel I should keep some sort of journal at the very least - although I start one of those most years, usually around now......The entries get sparser and flimsier as summer progresses, usually coming to a standstill around late June.....then maybe a revisit about October, but very briefly. Looking back over them (sadly wilted and battered notebooks left in the shed or greenhouse), THEY ALL SAY THE SAME STUFF! A general whine about slacker neighbours and the tedium of tying tomatoes and the whole jam fiasco with a few puffs of thrillery and glee when a new plant flowers and the roses are in full flush. I can barely believe how humdrum it all is. This year though, I feel I will be looking back on humdrum with the fondest of memories since I have not taken such a leap into the unknown since a little fling in the mid 90s when I moved us all to Brighton to study for a history degree, persuading Mr.Campanula to do one too (we were the last intake to get a full grant and free tuition).
Plus, I finally have a camera.
Mariannese - 18 years! I think I was still using WordPerfect then. I remember getting a laptop for college - joy, I used to get it out proudly whenever possible after the trauma of Locoscript (shudder) on tatty Amstrad.

Good luck on your new adventure, Suzy! I really find myself wordless these days, result of the snow and the dreadful election (and its dreadful results). Yesterday was clear and mild, it looks like the same for today, and God be praised the snow is melting fast. Perhaps when I can see bare ground again my brain will unlock as well.
You're right about how one writes about the same things year after year. Its cyclical nature is much of the point of gardening, after all.

Camp, it may have been about the same stuff, but the way you write it is always interesting and amusing, even thought sometimes I have no idea what you're talking about--Locoscript and tatty Armstrand? Sometimes I laugh out loud at some of the mental images I get when reading your "stuff".

I read a book called "French Dirt" recently about an American who lives in France for a year and borrows a small plot of land so he can grow some vegetables. He makes friends through it and carries the reader along on what he learns about the people in that village through growing tomatoes and greens. It is entertaining because of the way it's written, but the subject matter - what are people like? how do they live? are we the same? - is hugely interesting. Not to mention the cucumbers and manure, of course.

Anyway, when I read that, and there are other books like it - I thought of what interesting things both of you would have to say about the worlds you live in and insights into cultures that you know about that others don't. Not to mention plants, seasons, rain, etc. Anyway, just some rambling thoughts. Of course, if you both go off and write books you won't have time to entertain us here, so maybe never mind on what I just said ...

Crikey Melissa, I am fairly speechless too. Eurozone mayhem - the sequel.
I expect you have been looking at your land thinking 'worst case scenario - we could eat' (I know I have).
Sympathy though - I know Italy has form for bizarre politicians but this!!! Can't help thinking we are going down the same ludicrous route (we even have the obligatory comedian) with the same self-serving, thieving, corrupt, lying, groping imbeciles. Demoralising.