Autumnal tree colour in Quebec is always spectacular but everything is late this year. Realizing that November is almost upon us, last night was the first frost and the weekend will be blattering rain we took a walk in the Arboretum this morning to catch what will probably be the last of the [...]
Thanksgiving Sunday 2019 A lot of summer is too hot while winters, delightfully cold as they are, are too long (they'd be fine if we could just skip the month of March). Meanwhile this part of the world is famed for its glorious autumn/fall colours which are just beginning to reach their peak [...]
Glowing at Twilight One of the pleasures of a garden like ours is that, especially at this time year when summer is sliding into autumn/fall, is sitting with a restorative drink and watching the seasonal flowers begin to positively "glow" as twilight takes over. It would be an unwanted cliché to suggest this [...]
Signs of the Season Turning Our first visit to North America was in 1987 at about this time of the year. A friend we were staying with mentioned that seeing Egrets on a lake in Minnesota was his marker that summer is nearly over while ours has become seeing Golden Rod in flower. [...]
Still some wonderful colour Spent a couple of hours in the arboretum this morning, just poking around on the trails. I had deliberately not taken a camera with me as to be honest I expected the best of the colour would now be behind us and I wanted to concentrate on the birds. Well, [...]
The week began with warnings that “winter is coming” and ended with it being here in spades. At least we had a warning and were able to spend time doing final garden winterizing. An early frost had finally killed the pansies in pots as well as a beautiful heliotrope and so the last of [...]
Still warm and sunny this week (for the most part) - there is still at least one Cicada whining in the trees although its motor was clearly starting to run down. Remarkable the number of plants still in flower on this late date. nasturtiums, pansies, echinacea, centuria, heliotrope, rudbeckia, campanula, feverfew, catnip and a [...]
Despite two mornings that started with a light air frost and white roofs we have yet to have enough nighttime cold to even put a skin of ice on the bird bath and temperatures remain well above “normal”. Some leaves are falling and there are autumnal colours starting to appear here and there but [...]
On the horticultural front this week we can offer simply the observation that autumn is now rapidly approaching and we are seeing the first serious colour changes in the leaves of our trees and shrubs while perennial flowers are dropping petals and standing tall with seed heads ready for the birds to eat. On [...]
The week started with a continuation of the abnormal heat and dry conditions we have (not) enjoyed for the past three weeks - nevertheless we have started to see small flocks of Canada Geese overhead. Most of those will be moving around the locality in search of grass to graze on and won’t really [...]