Tuesday, September 12, 2006

A Growing Mystery, Solved

I probably am easily mystified, as hardly a day goes by that something doesn't astonish, or at least baffle me... to hear me walking about the garden, one might think I'm slapping at mosquitoes, but instead I'm slapping my forehead in surprise or frustration at something. This maneuver has never enlightened me, but has left me with a nice, rosy complexion. Admittedly as I've gotten older, my ponderings have all too often gone from amazement at the intricacies of nature, to wondering where I could have misplaced my three foot long, bright yellow loppers. I think one of the reasons I can grow rhododendrons here, is because of all the iron in the soil from tools I've lost in the woods over the years. Anyway, today's mystery began last spring, when a cute little plant popped up in a hosta-azalea bed; its leaves, when they came out of the ground were rolled up like a tube, and unfurled in a most striking fashion. At the time, I posted a picture of the leaves, pondering about what they might be. Today I ran across this cute little plant again, and it's grown at a most alarming rate from last year. It's obviously a shrub, with large, very attractive, shiny leaves. I took a picture of it, shown above, and was walking back to the house, wondering where I had seen leaves like that before, and had to brush back a limb from Sinocalycanthus chinensis, which constantly tries to grow out in the path, where it's sunnier. There was the sound of my hand slapping my forehead, as this shrub had the same strikingly large, waxy leaves. Sinocalycanthus is the Chinese version of our S.E. native sweetshrub, calycanthus, and is shown below. It does get these clever little seedpods, looking like upside down bubble-pipes. However, the seeds are sticky, and would seem disinclined to roll uphill and across the garden to my azalea bed, and they certainly don't look terribly attractive to birds. Probably a bigger mystery, is where I'm going to move this new shrub to, as it will reach the size of an SUV. I never realized how small a one acre garden is...Posted by Picasa

Comments:
Funny stuff... I'm starting to lose stuff in the garden, too, but didn't realize it would enrich the soil. Funny stuff, I enjoyed your update today.
 
Peggy... been there, done that.

Carol... the trouble is, I'm often out working in the woods in a tangle of brush; set something down, go get a drink of water, and poof! Someday after I'm gone, somebody will probably clear the woods to build sixteen condos, and be amazed at the tools, gloves and such, littering the ground.

Don
 
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