Thursday, January 27, 2011

Begonia rex 'Escargot'

Yesterday almost felt like an early spring day so Rosemary and I went out into the garden and do some early spring cleanup.

I also used the opportunity to cut our Christmas tree into four separate parts with an electric reciprocating saw. I cut some of the branches with my secateurs so I was then able to get rid of the tree in the green bin which will be picked up by the city next week. There have been some years where the tree has been on the side of the house into mid February.

Every year we have chickweed infesting our rose bed. I spent about an hour removing it all by hand and getting my hands viciously attacked (even if they don’t mean it) by my dormant roses. The most aggressive of my dormant roses is a very large rambler called Albertine. When she blooms in June she has a spread of about 18 feet. One of her canes was looking brown so I cut it off. This sort of drastic action usually results in new canes coming up in the spring. Drastic pruning action can rejuvenate a rose. But Albertine, true to form (and I was too lazy to go inside to get leather gloves) left my hands with many scratches from its very large thorns.

While we were working in the front we could smell the delicious smell of our two sarcococca bushes. The plant has minute small flowers that pack incredible scent for size. Best of all there are not too many other plants that bring fragrance to a late January garden.

By the time we decided to go inside my lungs felt cleaned by the fresh air and my joints while sore seemed to be a bit more flexible.

I could have scanned the flowers of our sarcococca to illustrate this blog. But I have already done that here. I opted for our strange Begonia rex ‘Escargot’. It has taken us about three years to figure that it grows nicely outside from spring until late fall. We then bring it inside and keep it in our dining room which is the coolest room in the house. There the begonia even flowers, as today’s scan attests to. The leaves are three or four times larger than the one you see here but in order to keep a good balance with the flowers I chose a smaller leaf.


As I write this is it is Thursday and Rosemary and Lauren are out in the garden as is Casa our 18 pound cat. I can see them from here through the window. Lauren is making mud pies by the rose bed. I got angry with her when she entered by the kitchen door to wash her hands. She had not removed her shoes so she left her marks on our white kitchen floor.

As was preparing to "fix up" the iPhone snap I had taken of Lauren making her mudpies I noticed the sunset. I turned off my desk light and took both the image on my monitor and the sunset at the same time. I am not into snapping sunsets but this time I thought it all very special.