Flowers in the Georgia Piedmont

Flowers are continuing to bloom here in the North Georgia Piedmont. A series of light showers came through this morning, and the rain helped wash some of the pollen out of the air and off surfaces. We parked our cars outside, and the rain washed off the pollen. Then the oak blooms fell on the wet cars. See light pink azaleas and white iris below.

 

Barbara and I participate in the Great Backyard Bird Count every February. The amount of time required is a minimum of 15 minutes. You list the birds you can identify and the maximum number of birds of each species that you see at one time. Easy checklist to fill out at www.birdcount.org. We always enjoy it even if that weekend in February in the Georgia Piedmont is nasty. I encourage you to join in. You can also go to other locations like at national park locations: Kennesaw National Battlefield, Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area, Mammoth Cave National Park, and many others.

Well, the winter of 2017 didn't take long to get calibrated as you can see in the attached photos.

Here in the north Georgia piedmont, the plants and the weather are out of phase. Not synchronized. In August, we had a dogwood at the northeast corner of the house bloom for a second time. And now in December 2017, we have a wide variety of summer blooms hanging on, and some winter blooms still coming on. All amongst the falling leaves from oak, hickory, and tulip poplar. Herewith, the December blooms.

In addition to the traditional colors, there are red and white azaleas.

Hydrangeas are way early.

Ginger lilies may normally bloom this time of year, but I'm skeptical.

A lone zinnia among the chestnut oak and Japanese maple leaves.

A great abundance of these, which are frost tolerant to an extreme degree.

In addition, we have winter blooms along side these summer ones.