Camellia 'Christmas Rose'

Warm weather continues though a bit cooler than the beginning of the week. Because the sun was out, 51F felt pretty good. In the morning I did inventory and mapped plants on Korean Hill with Joe Menes. We're combining inventory with mapping because many of the plants on Korean Hill haven't been mapped with our newest, accurate to  21", GPS. The unit was, for the most part cooperative (satellites will be satellites) so we made good progress. Joe did most of the work. In the afternoon, the two of us along with Carole, walked the collection to review points along a walking tour, that will also be a virtual tour, or vice versa. We decided that the collection is beautiful and that there is no simple route to see everything. I think we're going in the right direction though.

This camellia is flowering outside the entrance to the ladies room at the Asian Collections parking lot. It's only one of many spring flowering varieties out now. This one is actually suggested for USDA Zone 8 because it wants to flower in the middle of winter. According to our new Zone map we're in 7b. This winter it's more like 8b.

Hamamelis x intemedia 'Jelena'

I've been so excited about the unusual flowers that our extraordinarily warm winter is bringing out that I forgot all about the plants that would be flowering now anyway. They are doing their regular thing except to a degree not often encountered. This witch-hazel kept catching my eye as I moved loads of CR-6 to the collection.

If you're interested in gardens in winter and you're within striking distance of the Arboretum, this weekend would be a good time to spend a couple of hours here. There are masses of Prunus mume and Hamamerlis flowering, plenty of camellias, hellebores galore, plus a miscellany of odds and ends.  This is as good as it gets in early February.