I live and garden in central North Carolina, in the Southeastern United States, near the city of Raleigh.
My house and garden sit on a lot of approximately 4 acres, but most of the land is covered with native forest and is not cultivated. The land is rolling with deep ravines and steep bluffs overlooking a boulder lined creek to the north. In some places the base of the bluff comes right up to the creek bank and in others there is a broad floodplain where lots of native ferns and wildflowers grow. The upland areas around the house consist of a mature forest of mostly American beech, white oak, and hickory. The house and garden are in a small clearing in the middle of the forest.
The soil varies, but most of it is heavy, acid, rich, red clay with some humus provided by the abundance of fallen leaves from the forest.
Summers are hot and humid with average highs of about 88F (31C) and lows of 68F (20C). Winters are cool with some snow. Average winter highs are about 50F (10C) with average lows about 32F (0C). Average mininum low each winter around 5F (-15C), which corresponds to USDA Zone 7, but cold spells are usually short lived. Annual rainfall is approximately 50 inches (127 cm) and is distributed fairly evenly throughout the year.
I am happily married to a sweet, smart, beautiful lady, Kim, and we have two beautiful, young children, Kathryn (10 years) and Andrew (6 years). Money is earned as a Software Engineer and a reasonable amount (for a plant nut) is spent on plants.
Gardening interests are wide, but my current interests are in showy plants native to the Southeastern United States and members of the Amaryllidaceae family that will grow in the open garden here, mostly Crinum, Crinum Hybrids, Zephyranthes, Zephyranthes Hybrids, Habranthus, x Amarcrinum, Hippeastrum Hybrids, Hymenocallis, Leucojum, Galanthus, Lycoris, Rhodophiala, Sternbergia, and Narcissus. I also cultivate showy members of the Zingiberaceae family, such as Hedychium, Curcuma, Kaempferia, and Alpinia.
I don't do much growing in containers on a permanent basis, but I keep a few for tender Hippeastrum, Hippeastrum Hybrids, Eucharis, Griffinia, Clivia, and Crinum. Like most serious gardeners, I always have a few dozen containers hanging around for seedlings, offsets, unidentified trades, and plants that are recovering from my poor attempts to find suitable places for them in the garden.
Using the pseudonym Crinumaniac, I also contribute to a blog about plants and gardening, not about bulbs exclusively. If you are interested in reading the blog, here's a link for your convenience:
Bodhisagan's Plants and Rants.
Like many plants, a pronunciation guide is needed for my name. The "ch" in Yourch is hard so it sounds like York.
You are welcome to contact me at jyourch at nc.rr.com
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