Monday, January 11, 2010

January week 1

Brrrrrr! It's been an unusually cold January with temps hovering around the 30's. Maybe this means February will be warmer than usual? Here's what I came across this week:

All the rhododendron leaves are curled up and drooping. This is the same position you'll find me in from January to March.
Outside the offices of Bennett's Creek Nursery I found a few things that seemed out of place in the middle of January:
dwarf sabal palm (Sabal minor) and
needle palm (Rhapidophyllum hystrix), both southeast natives.
And this unusual Asian tree, Daphniphyllum macropodum. I've never seen one growing in Williamsburg before.
They also had some nice red-barked Japanese maples. This one is Senkaki.
Elsewhere around town:
This crabapple was loaded with dark red fruits. I'll bet it's a pain to tidy up when they eventually fall.
And this was a little unexpected. Dogwood drupes still on the tree. Every other dogwood in town had been picked clean weeks ago.
Here's something I hate to see: crapemurder!
It's a shame the way some people disfigure their crapes, thinking they'll get more blooms.
I guess if you're going to cut back your crapemyrtles, you could at least pollard them neatly like these trees.
And here's a mystery...something has been killing lots of evergreen trees, striking them down in their youth. It seems to be mostly firs, but also one or two pine species. They're strewn along curbs all over town. Any theories?
You can see the rest of my January week 1 photos here.

6 comments:

danger garden said...

Interesting, the same evergreen sickness has been spotted all over Portland. In fact my neighbor had the same issue last year. I think they were afraid it was transferable to humans as they left it lying in the front yard until spring, to make sure it was safe to pick up no doubt.

Jennifer G. Horn said...

Crape Murder! Oh, I hate it when people do that!

compost in my shoe said...

The Florida anise, Illicium floridanum looks the same way when frozen and unhappy. I always know waking up, looking out the window this time of year how cold it is by it's behavior

Les said...

We had a houseplant like those in the last shots recently, but it looked as if it you use more light and less lights. So I put it out in the yard near the street, and damned if someone didn't take it.

Janet, The Queen of Seaford said...

The palms look pretty good considering the artic temps we have had. I really love the red bark on Japanese Maples!
Pollarding is such an ugly habit, wish it were a habit that was broken.

Carrie Prince said...

Good photos, Phillip. Good looking Sabal shot. We grow lots of palm varieties in this area. They withstand our (often minimal)cold winter temps easily. With places like the Gulf Coast and north Florida getting regular deep freezes each year -often into the teens- we have to thank our stars that we stay very moderate because of our proximity to the Gulf Stream and our islandic settings.