Honeysuckle, Ginger Lily and Tea Olive!

August has turned out to be a wonderful month!  The past few weeks have given us lovely rainfall and moderate temperatures that feel like early Fall! 

 

The Honeysuckle is blooming again!  When I take my morning walk around our farm, the sweet scent is so lovely.  I’ve distilled more Honeysuckle Hydrosol for The Herbarie that will hopefully last through the winter until it blooms again in the spring.  I’ve also prepared my own honeysuckle tinctures to ward off cold and flu this winter. 

The Ginger Lilies are flowering and smell so heavenly!  Ginger Lily is a sure sign that Fall is on the way!  I always bring Ginger Lily into the house when it blooms and the entire house is filled with its sweet scent!  Ginger Lily is one of my absolute favorite scents!

 

Before long our many, many Tea Olives (osmanthus) will be flowering and sending forth their elusive, sweet scent.  This shrub is evergreen here in the south and is drought resistant, which makes it a fabulous landscape shrub.  The tiny flowers are not showy, but the scent is wonderful.  I like to prune tea olive into small trees and I have them in almost all the gardens.  The tiny flowers grow in clusters and are seldom noticed.  But visitors almost always ask about the mysterious, yet exquisite scent that drifts through the air on a bright Fall day. As seen in the picture above, I've lined our driveways with Tea Olive, Firepower Nandina and Melampodium - all tough, drought resistant plants that love our hot summer sun.

 

Our Honeysuckle, Tea Olive, and Ginger Lily remind me of the new scented botanical extract called Asian Lily.  And as promised,  Sensique Scented Botanical Extract Asian Lily is on the way!  Asian Lily is a special blend of natural botanical extracts and should be in stock the first part of September.  Asian Lily is light and softly exotic and perfect to use in fragrance-free formulations.  

My faithful roses are still blooming here and there.  Maggie has been in bloom all summer.  The Tea Roses – Monsieur Tillier and Mrs. B.R. Cant are  lush and full of blooms.   Othello (David Austin) Rose is very sweet and hot pink. 

 

The delicate climber Awakening grows beside the cottage porch among the Artemesia and day lilies.  The Camellia sasanqua are full of buds and will be blooming soon. 

 

 

Zinnias are everywhere and are every color of pink, orange, and yellow.  Butterflies and bees love these happy flowers!   They are also a delight to me every summer and are always welcome to reseed in my gardens!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cardinal Flower is wrapped around the pergola and is very attractive to hummingbirds. When I gave a garden tour last week, the hummers were zooming all around us from flower to flower.

 

 

 

 

The muscadines are ripe and ready to be picked! 

 

 

 

 

 

Sally is working in the office today and I'm working in my lab.  The Herbarie has taken a break from processing orders until Tuesday, September 4.  During this time, I'm hoping to be able to catch up on my "to do" list as well as some needed R&R! 

 

Over the next few weeks we are going to be upgrading to use WordPress for blogging.  We also plan to connect with Facebook from the new blog.  Once everything is complete, I'll let everyone know so we can all migrate over to the new place!

 

Best Wishes for a Good Holiday Weekend!

Angie & Sally