1. I’m beginning my six this week with a photo that announces what makes all the others worthwhile, viable even—rain! This photo was taken of a Gerbera daisy that was nearly dead due to lack of appreciable rain for over a month, but powered through with one healthy flower.
2. Another plant flowering now is the native Gentiana alba, or plain gentian. At least I think that is the variety of gentian I have here. There are numerous varieties, and this particular plant appeared on its own near an oakleaf hydrangea on the side of the driveway last year. I’m pleased to see that it has grown a little this season.
3. To give some color to an otherwise empty looking bed of crocuses, irises, and various herbaceous plants I’ve added a few ornamental kale plants. Best seen from directly above, they are nonethless interesting in the flower bed.
4. Another new addition is Camellia Winter’s Cupid, which promises 2.5 inch white blooms with yellow stamens and a compact growth habit. I purchased it back in October at a Blount County Master Gardener fall conference where it was highlighted as a good cold hardy camellia for small garden spaces. It should finally be planted by the end of the weekend now that some rain has rendered the ground “dig-able” again.
Winter’s Cupid can grow to 8 feet, but that will take a while. In the meantime, it will fit nicely between large blue pots with chartreuse anise plants in them. Eventually, though, it will fill in a curved line with two other camellias, camellia japonica Grace Albritton and camellia Lady Vansittart Sport pictured to the right in the photo below.
5. I thought that I had lost the anise plants (Illicium) in those blue pots after two prolonged freezes last winter, prolonged for Alabama that is. But they leafed out this summer and look healthy now, although they are still small.
6. Now to the featured photo. All those little balls at the end of the spreading branches are nuts of the mockernut hickory, or white hickory, hognut, or bullnut tree (Carya tomentosa). Tormentosa might be a better name for this tree because its abundant fruiting every year is a torment in the landscape. These nuts are huge, golf ball size at least. The top photo on the right below shows one next to a penny. The photo also shows how unusually thick the hulls, or husks, are. The interior nut in the lower image is obviously not from the nut above but from an even larger one. These nutshells are nearly impossible to crack even with a hammer. In spite of that, I see chipmunks carrying off mockernut prizes nearly as big as their little heads. How the chipmunks will crack open the shells to get to the nut meat I cannot imagine.
With that I end my six for this Saturday (although I am certain I’ll hear more mockernut hickory nuts hit the driveway or the tin roof tonight) and point readers to Jim Stephens’ Garden Ruminations, to enjoy his garden and to find links to other gardens and guidelines for joining in this weekly sharing.
After Eden 
That does sound like a tough nut. I like ornamental kale, but it usually goes over too quickly in the first frosts.
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Tough is a kind word for this nut. There are two of these trees, both quite mature, in the garden. The mockernuts are heavy, numerous, and deadly to lawn mower blades (which are used to mulch leaves). They can also turn ankles and smash delicate petals. The trees were here long before I, though, so . . ..
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I guess that of the many nuts from the White Hickory that the chipmunks take and bury somewhere, there are bound to be germinations. Is the tree widespread or is it a speciality planted in gardens?
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The mockernut is the most abundant hickory in the southeast, so many of those hard to break nutshells must germinate on their own! I do find several cracked open with the nut meat cleaned out.
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I share your joy that there finally is some rain.
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Camellia ‘Winter’s Cupid’ doesn’t seem to have made it to this side of the pond. I keep having to reassess William Ackerman’s hybrids, in the right conditions they are superb, in the wrong conditions, which here means too much shade, they can be very disappointing. ‘Winter’s Joy’ has been exceptionally good this year.
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Right now ‘Winter’s Cupid’ is heavy with buds. I look forward to the next couple of months—and hope I’m giving it sufficient sunlight.
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OH, I remember the hognut from Oklahoma! I managed to find a few intact native pecans from the somewhat common pecan trees there (we were in Pecan Valley Junction), but found only three hognuts from a single tree. I was not so impressed with the unfamiliar tree, but took the nuts anyway. Unfortunately (or fortunately), they did not germinate.
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I love the Gerbera daisy adorned with rain drops.
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Rain drops on flowers fascinate me. Thanks.
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That gerbera is so lovely, I miss having them in the garden. Those hickory nuts are really… something. Google tells me that people do sometimes eat them, so now I’m wondering how they manage to get the things open if even a hammer doesn’t work…
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