Nature! What’s that all about?

Time for some photos of plants growing in our garden. I know that I do this every year, but the garden is not the same from one year to the next so I don’t suppose that the images are either. Anyway – the nature of this journal is that there will always be something else along in a moment and there are no penalties for skipping ahead (I wanted there to be but couldn’t figure out how to do it!)…

The reason for my somewhat incredulous byline is that – no matter how much a part of it we all are – nature is still pretty much a riddle to me (wrapped inside a mystery etc, etc)… Take this Camellia for example. Some seasons back (maybe four or five) I pruned it back a little in the early spring. It was probably not the best time of year for such a treatment, but I was not too severe on the shrub; merely trying to persuade it not to stomp all over the ‘lesser’ plants around it.

The Camellia clearly took umbrage and refused to flower at all in any of the succeeding years – with the exception of the odd desultory bloom once in a while. This year – well, take a look for yourself:

Maybe I will post an update when all those buds burst into bloom.