{LOOK we got some Wakaebisu Satsuki Azaleas blooming!}

On May 4, I did write about our {Satsuki Azaleas Wakaebisu in Front of Our Home} ←(click it) that succumbed to the drought; last photos shown. BUT mother nature is strong and in our wood garden, Pieter did photograph these perfect blossoms from two shrubs, that came from the front of our home. Look how pretty these were on May 11th! It makes one happy to see their beauty. Lucky transplants that survived and blossomed. The climate in our wood garden is quite some degrees lower than out in the open under the scorching sun.

So glad to share these with you!

{Our Fiberglass Window Boxes & Double Cascade Pink Petunias}

In February 1996 we got our Fiberglass Window Boxes from Flower Framers of Cincinnati ←(click it) in Cincinatti, OH. We got the 8 Ft length for our retainer wall alongside the driveway. The kitchen bay window had 5 Ft and 3 Ft boxes. Our bay window area and veranda we completed in 1997. On April 15 of last year I did a post about our Fiberglass Window Boxes, ←just click on the hyperlink to go there. As we started off with some white petunias and white pansies, we went into verbenas. Till we lost those, due to drought while we were traveling... On the retainer wall, alongside the driveway we still have those verbenas. But last year we both fell in love with the Double Cascade Pink Petunias from Walmart! Look at my Halloween blog ←(click it) where they still were blooming proudly. Guess what? Pieter did take some cuttings and we had them all winter in our green house and TA-DA...

Home grown Double Cascade Pink Petunias and they do so well in our heat during summer! 

This is in 1997 when our veranda windows got their 7 Ft Fiberglass White Window Boxes. 

The quality of those boxes is excellent; we have them now for 14 and 15 years. They are not cheap, but per season they are, over time! 

These are the 3 largest 8 Ft long Fiberglass Window Boxes on the driveway and till today we still have pink verbenas in them. If we loose some through drought, the greenhouse provides a great environment for growing new ones from cuttings. After all, we both are the son and daughter of a market gardener...

 These are the 7 Ft, 5 Ft and 3 Ft length White Fiberglass Window Boxes.

White petunias on the kitchen bay window (one of three windows).

The veranda with a 7 Ft long White Fiberglass Window Box.

The kitchen bay window with its 5 Ft and 3 Ft White Fiberglass Window Boxes.

These are the double cascade pink petunias from last year from which we got the cuttings.

Last year...

Healthy in October and good for yielding cuttings!

This was on May 10, at 9:30 AM in the morning and what do you think of our own crop?
The bright sunlight makes the photo kind of harsh...

Double Cascade Pink Petunia in all its glory!
Market Gardener's blood...

{Our Fragrant Magnolia Grandiflora 'Namnetensis Flore Pleno'}

• One of our most prized trees and a very rare variety, is this double flowering Magnolia Grandiflora 'Namnetensis Flore Pleno'. 
• It received its name from the French hybridizer Delaunay from Nantes, who made it commercially available in France from 1865 on.

• It was exactly in 1711 when the Saint Michel, owned by merchant, shipowner René Darquistade, did bring back from Louisiana, USA this rare double and fragrant Grandiflora Magnolia. 
• Following this arduous journey it struggled for twenty years. 
• It should have been destroyed as it was not a happy tree with no flowers. 
• But the wife of the gardener, out of love for plants, and by intuition, did plant it in a more sheltered area to protect it from the cold winds. 
• Now it prospered and rewarded those that saved it, by blooming within a couple of years. 
• This meant also the beginning of fame, as the most famous botanical luminaries from the region came to admire and pay tribute to its immensely delicate double fragrant cream flowers. 
• The rest is history: 
• Nantes is long famous for its huge collection of some 500 magnolia species. 

• This photo shows the birth of a new leaf and a bud forming a fragrant double magnolia.
• The species is native to the South of the United States from the Carolina's to Florida and till Texas.

• Wish I could transmit its fragrance...
• How must the French gardener's wife have enjoyed the fruits of her tender care! 
• Funny that it came from Louisiana to France and we again got it from Louisiana!

• Tell you what... I spray those magnolia leaves golden for Christmas decorations!

• Now stepping back, so you get to see where this 'garden aristocrat' lives...

• From our bedroom we can see it and each time we drive onto our driveway into the garage. The bedroom is on the second floor above. 
• You see how scorched the grass is already from the drought and heat?

• We only sprinkle the trees and shrubs; not the lawn...
• Here you see the golden live oak Quercus virginiana 'Grandview Gold' (left); they came together from Louisiana.

• Come October, you can see these bright red seeds...

• All three trees you see here, are evergreen which makes it kind of tropical looking...
• Golden live oak; magnolia and windmill palm - see: {Our Garden White & Icy Today as Snowstorm Slams South} with icy palm from snowstorm in January).

• This Magnolia Grandiflora 'Namnetensis Flore Pleno' has a perfect conical form and is huge already.

• Now let's walk to the other side of our home where we do also have a Southern Magnolia, a Grandiflora that is not fragrant and not double; but nevertheless pretty.

• Hope you enjoyed our Southern Charm!

Related link:

UPS 2nd Day Air Delivery from Louisiana Nursery + Fight against Tuberous Roots of Greenbrier! | where we ordered all our special and exotic trees and shrubs