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. [...]
Garden Creatures The sun at just the right angle illuminated a horizontal band of white "fluff" in a Pagoda Dogwood tree and it warranted a better look. At first appearances one thinks of Tent Moth caterpillars but this is the wrong sort of tree. Closer inspection found that most of the affected area [...]
This and That Coming back from a walk we found a Banded Hairstreak butterfly (Satyrium calanus) on the "other" sort of milkweed (Asclepia tuberosum). They only open their wings to fly away but the upper surface isn't much more colourful than this. ** Not bad photo for one taken with an iPhone, albeit it [...]
We seem to have slipped into the habit of writing a round-up of recent activities in the garden around the middle of each month. This one is being composed as we swelter under a “heat dome” sent to us from south of the border - far too hot to do anything physical at [...]
Lawn Care - The "LoMow" Way, a taster. Regular followers of this journal will have heard earlier this year that we have pretty well let our lawn loose to do whatever it wants to do this summer - just a couple of mown paths through it so that we can reach the corners [...]
Cartooning ... Seeking some illustrations for a project elsewhere I started sketching on my iPad using the Procreate app ... I tested some of these on Facebook and enough people were complementary that I thought this might amuse the followers of the journal on a hot, too hot, Sunday afternoon. It was fun [...]
Text here Evening Peonies I happened upon these flowers as I was wandering the garden looking at early roses - attended by vampire mosquitoes. The light was gorgeous.
Text here Painted Lady Vanessa carduis Starting to appear in the garden now the June heat is beginning to build up Text here Canadian Tiger Swallowtail Papillio canadensis Another garden visitor - also seen today, but not photographed, a Black Swallowtail (Papillio polyxenes) [...]
Desirable Weeds Continuing the experiment of seeing what comes up if the lawn is not mown ... this week we have Buttercups and we have Clover. Actually we have two species of Clover ... this is a tall clover (Trifolium hybridum* - the Alsike Clover) but we also have low [...]
Text here Guelder Rose Two varieties of Viburnum are in flower at the moment, the one to the front is Viburnum. opulus var. opulus (European Guelder Rose), the taller one behind, is a North American native - Viburnum. opulus var. americanum aka V. trilobium (High-bush Cranberry). Gorgeous complex flowers followed later by bunches [...]