The Garden of Bogturtle

At the front of the house, the old Rhododendron chionoides, (if I spelled that right), is huge. A few blooms of an Iron Clad Red can also be seen.  On the pole at one end of the pool deck, the climbing Rose 'Winner's Circle' competes with the Honeysuckle, Lonicera tellmanianna. One cluster of that is shown below.  This may be the Clematis 'Duchess of Edinborough'. I don't recall buying it or planting it, and, on rare occasions, plants have come with other orders, probably without the seller even knowing they were immature specimens just accidentally in with the desired order. Pratia fluviatilis, Laurentia fluviatilis. Two names, I think, for the 'Blue Star Creeper'. Have not seen it, this year, in local places that would sell it. Often among plants of the brand 'Stepable', and I suppose it is.  A little too much of a good thing, as Sensative Ferns, the Honeysuckle sold to me as 'Mandarin' and the red clone of the Honeysuckle Lonicera semp...

  Calicanthus 'Hartlage Wine' has larger, more impressive blooms than our southern native, C. florida. But the crushed blooms have none of the strawberry, pineapple, whatever smell of that smaller flowered shrub.  Above and below is Rhododendron 'Purple Passion'. None of the sparkle I see in real life, but I think that comes because light goes into the individual large cells of the flower, reflects back from the further side of the cell, to the eye. Somehow lost to the camera.  For some reason, perhaps because of an exhausting schedule, a good many of the Rhododendrons and Azaleas in the bed in the middle of the lawn just seemed to develop dieing sections. I cut out all the dead parts and the result is a disjointed mess, now requiring attention to rid it of Japanese Honeysuckle and Greenbriar. But the evergreens are coming back. Very little dead, showing up, and, happily, a new chipper, shredder will reduce the pruned items to mulch. Among the Rhododendron 'Iron Cla...