Not a normal year, or is it?

This photograph of what we call jonquils here in the South, but which are officially Narcissus pseudonarcissus, was taken February 28, 2011.  A similar shot (also revealing the poor condition of my countertop) shows a huge bouquet of these same flowers, gathered from my woods on March 10, 2009.

So, on this past Monday, which was January 9th, I was up at the little house transplanting some sasanqua seedlings when I spied something yellow on the slope behind the cottage.  Daffodils (these days I say daffodils and not jonquils), already blooming!

I picked nine of the flowers before it started to rain.  I'm not showing them, because they are in an empty jar of Paul Prudhomme's Blackened Redfish Magic seasoning.  Plus, my countertop is in even worse shape than above.

But, what on earth?  We've certainly had bouts of unseasonably warm weather before.  However, I don't recall these flowers blooming in early January.  Late January, yes, but not this soon.

On Sunday, I noticed a scattering of yellow blooms on some Carolina jessamine on a neighbor's fence.  I also have a few blooms on my white flowering quince, and a couple of open flowers on some forsythia.   The 'Ice Follies' daffodils are up and budded.  The yellow mahonia flowers, usually at their height in February, are beginning to taper off now.  Never have I seen the latter bloom in December as happened this year.

But, not to worry.  The plants always seem to survive these crazy fluctuations and return to normal the next year (if there is a normal anymore).  Last week, it went down to 22 degrees and turned all the open camellias brown.  Yesterday, I noticed the flowers were blooming like crazy once again.  They are certain to take a beating at the end of this week when it turns cold again.

Even though these daffodils were early, they still had that unmistakable fragrance.  One whiff, and I am transported back to my yard in Palmetto, Georgia, and I am picking jonquils for my teacher.  The juice is running out of the stems, and my mother, who has been watching me out of the kitchen window, brings some wax paper and wraps them up.  The next morning I arrive with my offering.  The gesture doesn't make my first grade teacher Miss Nellie Keith any sweeter, but I feel good about giving her the flowers.

Back to the present.  I don't know who planted these bulbs or when (the contractor who repaired the little house found newspapers on the walls from 1937; the deed lists it as having been built in 1926), but they have been going strong since I came here in 1973.  There have been years when they were early and years when they were late.  One year, we had a blizzard on March 13, and it broke all of them off.  That's the only time I can remember that they succumbed to the weather.

Even though it's turning cold and windy now, I'll go up this afternoon and see if any more are blooming. I imagine there are lots more to come, so I needn't worry that these few were extra early.  I'll keep you posted on whether this is a normal year or not.  It's pretty likely that I won't be able to tell.

Not a normal year, or is it?

This photograph of what we call jonquils here in the South, but which are officially Narcissus pseudonarcissus, was taken February 28, 2011.  A similar shot (also revealing the poor condition of my countertop) shows a huge bouquet of these same flowers, gathered from my woods on March 10, 2009.

So, on this past Monday, which was January 9th, I was up at the little house transplanting some sasanqua seedlings when I spied something yellow on the slope behind the cottage.  Daffodils (these days I say daffodils and not jonquils), already blooming!

I picked nine of the flowers before it started to rain.  I'm not showing them, because they are in an empty jar of Paul Prudhomme's Blackened Redfish Magic seasoning.  Plus, my countertop is in even worse shape than above.

But, what on earth?  We've certainly had bouts of unseasonably warm weather before.  However, I don't recall these flowers blooming in early January.  Late January, yes, but not this soon.

On Sunday, I noticed a scattering of yellow blooms on some Carolina jessamine on a neighbor's fence.  I also have a few blooms on my white flowering quince, and a couple of open flowers on some forsythia.   The 'Ice Follies' daffodils are up and budded.  The yellow mahonia flowers, usually at their height in February, are beginning to taper off now.  Never have I seen the latter bloom in December as happened this year.

But, not to worry.  The plants always seem to survive these crazy fluctuations and return to normal the next year (if there is a normal anymore).  Last week, it went down to 22 degrees and turned all the open camellias brown.  Yesterday, I noticed the flowers were blooming like crazy once again.  They are certain to take a beating at the end of this week when it turns cold again.

Even though these daffodils were early, they still had that unmistakable fragrance.  One whiff, and I am transported back to my yard in Palmetto, Georgia, and I am picking jonquils for my teacher.  The juice is running out of the stems, and my mother, who has been watching me out of the kitchen window, brings some wax paper and wraps them up.  The next morning I arrive with my offering.  The gesture doesn't make my first grade teacher Miss Nellie Keith any sweeter, but I feel good about giving her the flowers.

Back to the present.  I don't know who planted these bulbs or when (the contractor who repaired the little house found newspapers on the walls from 1937; the deed lists it as having been built in 1926), but they have been going strong since I came here in 1973.  There have been years when they were early and years when they were late.  One year, we had a blizzard on March 13, and it broke all of them off.  That's the only time I can remember that they succumbed to the weather.

Even though it's turning cold and windy now, I'll go up this afternoon and see if any more are blooming. I imagine there are lots more to come, so I needn't worry that these few were extra early.  I'll keep you posted on whether this is a normal year or not.  It's pretty likely that I won't be able to tell.

I knew Pearl when

I remember the exact year I met Pearl Fryar.  January 1990.  The reason I can recall the month and the year is because when I first saw Pearl's topiary garden in Bishopville, S.C., I could see the destruction from Hurricane Hugo in the distance.  The massive storm had laid waste to places like Charleston and Pawleys Island, S.C., in September 1989.  Pawleys is the beach where my family (my husband, children, his mother and sister and her family) had vacationed since 1976.  The Tip Top Inn where we had stayed was washed away.  The island recovered, and my girls and I still go there.  The only year we missed was 1990.

At any rate, here it was January, and I was looking for something suitable for winter to write about.  I called up another writer Tom Woodham to see if he knew anyone who did topiary.  How fortuitous.  Tom, who then lived in Atlanta, had just been home to Bishopville, S.C., where he had made an incredible discovery.  A man named Pearl Fryar had a yard full of topiary he'd trained and clipped himself.  "You're not going to believe your eyes."

And I didn't.  I drove four hours (with the blessing of the AJC editor) and turned down Pearl's street.
What I saw were these objects everywhere, like green pieces of art.  Pearl had carved almost every shrub you could think of into all sorts of shapes - some classical that you would see in an English garden; some abstract that reminded you of giant ballerinas; animals (he had a tiger for Clemson and a gamecock for the University of South Carolina); letters that stood about four feet high, spelling out L-O-V-E; tall complicated sculptures that revealed limbs in a wish-bone pattern; plus spirals, hearts, balls and diamonds with balls sitting atop.  I can't even begin to list the shapes, nor can I write down the variety of plant material he had used.  Besides the obvious Japanese and yaupon holly (he had his address spelled out parterre fashion with dwarf yaupon), he had every evergreen you can think of.  Even deciduous trees like dogwoods had been coaxed into various shapes.  I remember one dogwood that had limbs forming a swing.  It was mind-boggling.

My feature article came out in the Atlanta paper in February 1990.  Pearl always claimed that was what set off his career, which is laughable.  He was already being pursued by newspapers, national magazines and television.  Before we knew it, Rosemary Verey, the famous English garden writer and author of many books, was paying a visit.  Busloads of tourists began arriving,  many of them from other countries.  Pearl had to hire an agent to book lectures and demonstrations all over the U.S.  To this day, he is pursued by the media and has caught the attention of the New York Times, Martha Stewart, CBS Sunday Morning and on and on.  Someone made a documentary about him.  He even has his own Web site, PearlFryar.com.

All this publicity is well-deserved.  Pearl has a talent that I don't think we'll see again.  He can look at a plant and envision what it could become.  On my first visit, he sent me home with an upright juniper and some string dyed with shoe polish.  I was supposed to wrap the string around the plant, then cut into it to make a spiral.  I only completed the first part and then had to remove the string.  I couldn't make myself do the necessary cut.

I believe Pearl could fashion a topiary in his sleep.  He uses gas hedge trimmers and cuts so fast that you can hardly follow what is happening.  Most of the specimens in his three acre yard have taken time and much trimming to fulfill his vision.  But, he can also make a spiral in seconds or do a cloud form, Japanese style topiary in five minutes' time.

Erica Glasener took the photograph above when A Gardener's Diary did our second episode on Pearl.  I had been mystified when I first saw what he'd done in 1990, but by 2005, I was incredulous.  There Pearl was, walking about on a giant mushroom made of live oak, trimming yet another piece on top.

I have to stop here, because there's so much to Pearl's story that I'm omitting.  Suffice it to say I'll be writing about Pearl again.  Once, I was supposed to be his Vanna White type assistant in a demonstration.  It turned out to be a disaster, due to my faint heartedness.  Pearl was kind, though, and smoothed things over.  More on what happened later.

I knew Pearl when

I remember the exact year I met Pearl Fryar.  January 1990.  The reason I can recall the month and the year is because when I first saw Pearl's topiary garden in Bishopville, S.C., I could see the destruction from Hurricane Hugo in the distance.  The massive storm had laid waste to places like Charleston and Pawleys Island, S.C., in September 1989.  Pawleys is the beach where my family (my husband, children, his mother and sister and her family) had vacationed since 1976.  The Tip Top Inn where we had stayed was washed away.  The island recovered, and my girls and I still go there.  The only year we missed was 1990.

At any rate, here it was January, and I was looking for something suitable for winter to write about.  I called up another writer Tom Woodham to see if he knew anyone who did topiary.  How fortuitous.  Tom, who then lived in Atlanta, had just been home to Bishopville, S.C., where he had made an incredible discovery.  A man named Pearl Fryar had a yard full of topiary he'd trained and clipped himself.  "You're not going to believe your eyes."

And I didn't.  I drove four hours (with the blessing of the AJC editor) and turned down Pearl's street.
What I saw were these objects everywhere, like green pieces of art.  Pearl had carved almost every shrub you could think of into all sorts of shapes - some classical that you would see in an English garden; some abstract that reminded you of giant ballerinas; animals (he had a tiger for Clemson and a gamecock for the University of South Carolina); letters that stood about four feet high, spelling out L-O-V-E; tall complicated sculptures that revealed limbs in a wish-bone pattern; plus spirals, hearts, balls and diamonds with balls sitting atop.  I can't even begin to list the shapes, nor can I write down the variety of plant material he had used.  Besides the obvious Japanese and yaupon holly (he had his address spelled out parterre fashion with dwarf yaupon), he had every evergreen you can think of.  Even deciduous trees like dogwoods had been coaxed into various shapes.  I remember one dogwood that had limbs forming a swing.  It was mind-boggling.

My feature article came out in the Atlanta paper in February 1990.  Pearl always claimed that was what set off his career, which is laughable.  He was already being pursued by newspapers, national magazines and television.  Before we knew it, Rosemary Verey, the famous English garden writer and author of many books, was paying a visit.  Busloads of tourists began arriving,  many of them from other countries.  Pearl had to hire an agent to book lectures and demonstrations all over the U.S.  To this day, he is pursued by the media and has caught the attention of the New York Times, Martha Stewart, CBS Sunday Morning and on and on.  Someone made a documentary about him.  He even has his own Web site, PearlFryar.com.

All this publicity is well-deserved.  Pearl has a talent that I don't think we'll see again.  He can look at a plant and envision what it could become.  On my first visit, he sent me home with an upright juniper and some string dyed with shoe polish.  I was supposed to wrap the string around the plant, then cut into it to make a spiral.  I only completed the first part and then had to remove the string.  I couldn't make myself do the necessary cut.

I believe Pearl could fashion a topiary in his sleep.  He uses gas hedge trimmers and cuts so fast that you can hardly follow what is happening.  Most of the specimens in his three acre yard have taken time and much trimming to fulfill his vision.  But, he can also make a spiral in seconds or do a cloud form, Japanese style topiary in five minutes' time.

Erica Glasener took the photograph above when A Gardener's Diary did our second episode on Pearl.  I had been mystified when I first saw what he'd done in 1990, but by 2005, I was incredulous.  There Pearl was, walking about on a giant mushroom made of live oak, trimming yet another piece on top.

I have to stop here, because there's so much to Pearl's story that I'm omitting.  Suffice it to say I'll be writing about Pearl again.  Once, I was supposed to be his Vanna White type assistant in a demonstration.  It turned out to be a disaster, due to my faint heartedness.  Pearl was kind, though, and smoothed things over.  More on what happened later.

Stella's last request

One of the rewards of writing a garden column for the Atlanta Journal and Constitution was getting to meet gardeners.  I'm trying to think.  Maybe there was one grouchy, unpleasant person in the whole bunch (actually, I believe this may have been someone I scouted for A Gardner's Diary), and I bet I interviewed at least a thousand gardeners, if not more.

A person I'll forever hold dear to my heart is Stella Smith.  I don't remember who gave me Stella's name, but to this day, this wonderful gardener continues to inspire me.

Stella was a barber.  Not a hairstylist in a beauty salon, but a barber in a barber shop.  A jolly person who was short of stature and who wore her hair cropped extremely short, Stella loved her garden, which was set in a spit of woods on a gently sloping hillside near the State Farmer's Market in Forest Park.  Of all the people I heard say, "Put a $1 plant in a $10 hole," or versions of the advice, it is Stella's quote I remember most.  She had stacks of bags of manure and Nature's Helper, and the health of the flowers, shrubs and trees in her garden served as testimony that her strategy worked.

I particularly remember a large patch of Madonna lilies she had growing in a sunny spot by the road.  These  beautiful white lilies don't usually do well in Georgia.  Early on, I fell victim to the catalogs and for several years running ordered them, only for them to bloom once and then disappear.  They came back for Stella, though.  I don't know her secret, but she also had bags of lime she used in her soil concoctions.  That could have been it.

One day, Stella called to tell me that she had terminal liver cancer, and the doctors didn't give her very long to live.  She said she had a favor to ask me.  She wanted to see Ryan Gainey's garden.   An avid reader of garden magazines, she knew all about the Decatur garden of this world famous garden designer.

I called Ryan, and he graciously said to come any time.  So, on a beautiful day in May, I picked Stella up.  She was weak and had trouble catching her breath, but was beaming with anticipation.

Stella was thrilled to meet the renowned designer, and she mustered every ounce of strength to examine his magnificent garden.  She said it was even more beautiful than she had ever imagined and marveled at the profusion of flowers and interesting plants.  She knew them all.

When I dropped her back at her house, she asked me to wait a moment.  She came back out with a book.  It was a well-worn copy of Wyman's Gardening Encyclopedia.  She said it had been invaluable to her, as the volume listed information on just about any plant and contained explanations of garden terms, as well.  She had written an inscription:  "To my friend, Martha Tate.  Enjoy!  Stella Smith, May 18, 1994".

I never saw or talked to Stella again.  There was never any answer when I would call, so I don't know when she died.

This treasured book turned out to be a godsend for me and still sits on my desk today.  Before the days of DSL and quick access to information via the Internet, I depended on this comprehensive work to research newspaper columns and for writing plant portraits for A Gardener's Diary.  The book had been a gift to Stella, as well.  Another inscription read:  "Merry Christmas and Best Wishes for a prosperous New Year.  Jim & Linda, 1975".

The above photograph shows one area of Ryan Gainey's garden years later in the month of June.  I've seen his wondrous creation many, many times, but being there that day in May, with a seasoned gardener who appreciated every leaf and flower, was perhaps best of all.

Stella's last request

One of the rewards of writing a garden column for the Atlanta Journal and Constitution was getting to meet gardeners.  I'm trying to think.  Maybe there was one grouchy, unpleasant person in the whole bunch (actually, I believe this may have been someone I scouted for A Gardner's Diary), and I bet I interviewed at least a thousand gardeners, if not more.

A person I'll forever hold dear to my heart is Stella Smith.  I don't remember who gave me Stella's name, but to this day, this wonderful gardener continues to inspire me.

Stella was a barber.  Not a hairstylist in a beauty salon, but a barber in a barber shop.  A jolly person who was short of stature and who wore her hair cropped extremely short, Stella loved her garden, which was set in a spit of woods on a gently sloping hillside near the State Farmer's Market in Forest Park.  Of all the people I heard say, "Put a $1 plant in a $10 hole," or versions of the advice, it is Stella's quote I remember most.  She had stacks of bags of manure and Nature's Helper, and the health of the flowers, shrubs and trees in her garden served as testimony that her strategy worked.

I particularly remember a large patch of Madonna lilies she had growing in a sunny spot by the road.  These  beautiful white lilies don't usually do well in Georgia.  Early on, I fell victim to the catalogs and for several years running ordered them, only for them to bloom once and then disappear.  They came back for Stella, though.  I don't know her secret, but she also had bags of lime she used in her soil concoctions.  That could have been it.

One day, Stella called to tell me that she had terminal liver cancer, and the doctors didn't give her very long to live.  She said she had a favor to ask me.  She wanted to see Ryan Gainey's garden.   An avid reader of garden magazines, she knew all about the Decatur garden of this world famous garden designer.

I called Ryan, and he graciously said to come any time.  So, on a beautiful day in May, I picked Stella up.  She was weak and had trouble catching her breath, but was beaming with anticipation.

Stella was thrilled to meet the renowned designer, and she mustered every ounce of strength to examine his magnificent garden.  She said it was even more beautiful than she had ever imagined and marveled at the profusion of flowers and interesting plants.  She knew them all.

When I dropped her back at her house, she asked me to wait a moment.  She came back out with a book.  It was a well-worn copy of Wyman's Gardening Encyclopedia.  She said it had been invaluable to her, as the volume listed information on just about any plant and contained explanations of garden terms, as well.  She had written an inscription:  "To my friend, Martha Tate.  Enjoy!  Stella Smith, May 18, 1994".

I never saw or talked to Stella again.  There was never any answer when I would call, so I don't know when she died.

This treasured book turned out to be a godsend for me and still sits on my desk today.  Before the days of DSL and quick access to information via the Internet, I depended on this comprehensive work to research newspaper columns and for writing plant portraits for A Gardener's Diary.  The book had been a gift to Stella, as well.  Another inscription read:  "Merry Christmas and Best Wishes for a prosperous New Year.  Jim & Linda, 1975".

The above photograph shows one area of Ryan Gainey's garden years later in the month of June.  I've seen his wondrous creation many, many times, but being there that day in May, with a seasoned gardener who appreciated every leaf and flower, was perhaps best of all.

A famous landscaper's mystery camellia

It was almost dark Monday evening when Susan Butterfield Brooks and I ventured out into the cold wind that was descending fast.  She had a pair of clippers.  We crossed the street and headed down the driveway to the back yard of Susan's neighbor, 98-year-old Jimmy Henderson.

We were on a mission to pick as many camellia blossoms as we could before the temperature plummeted that night.  By the next morning, all the open flowers would be ruined by the predicted 22-degrees.  Susan had permission from Jimmy to pick bouquets anytime.

The camellias were really trees, limbed up from the bottom and reaching a height of at least 15 feet.  We had to reach up and pull down branches.  Susan would hold, while I clipped.  She let me know right off that she liked longer stems, so I quickly changed my modus operandi.  I'm glad she directed me.

First, we picked Camellia japonica 'Professor Charles S. Sargent'.  The red camellia is easy to recognize, with its tufted middle.  Next, we hit a tree loaded with red and white variegated blooms.  The flowers were larger than 'Professor Sargent', also with a tufted middle, only much looser.  The variegation I would describe as red splotched with white.

It was getting colder and darker when we reached the tree with the white flowers.  I first thought 'White Empress', but soon realized the blooms weren't large enough.  The idea was the same, though, with semi-double petals and yellow stamens that stood out in the middle.

When I got my bounty home and made some bouquets, I was most intrigued by the white flower.  It was so exquisite and so delicate that it appeared to be artificial.  The flowers were, in fact, see-through.  I could put my finger behind a petal, and you could see the outline.

All of these camellias are special because they were planted by someone I greatly admired.  Jimmy's wife was the late Edith Henderson, a much-admired and well-known landscape architect who designed many gardens in Atlanta and around the Southeast.  In the years when I was becoming obsessed with flowers and gardens, she wrote a column for the Atlanta Journal and Constitution.  I hung every word.  When they changed columnists, I was bereft.  I was glad when her book, Edith Henderson's Home Landscape Companion, came out in 1993.  By then, I was a garden columnist for the paper, but I still missed her weekly descriptions of plants and ideas for landscaping.

I have some detectives on the case.  I first called 95-year-old Margaret Moseley who studied pictures in her camellia book.  She called me back to suggest 'Silver Waves'.  I looked it up online, but the petals on this camellia are more oval.  There's an ever-so-delicate "spoon" edge, meaning that the rim of the petal is curved in.

Then, I caught North Georgia Camellia Society guru John Newsome as he was walking in the door.  He immediately said 'Silver Waves', as well.  There's definitely a resemblance, but it's those rounded-oval petals that are different.  John now has a computer, so I've sent him a picture.  I'll be interested to see if it can be identified.  He said there are many old varieties around that remain a mystery.  This may be one of them.