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. [...]
Walking about ... Spent several hours this morning working in the town park just down the road to help with the planting of 224 new trees from some 33 different native species to enhance and extend the wooded area already there. Feeling rather stiff this afternoon I took the camera for a walk around [...]
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 [...]
“Remember, remember the fifth of November, gunpowder, treason and plot” … all that and the municipal elections mean that not much has been achieved in the garden this week that is worthy of mention. There are still leaves on the trees, though thankfully they are finally starting to turn yellow and drop to the [...]
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 [...]
A mostly sunny and unusually warm week turning to cloud and some rain on occasion. The seed in the feeders has started to go down again due to the resumption of feeding by the usual suspects such as Blue Jays, Northern Cardinals - lots of them - Black-capped Chickadees and House Finches, the latter [...]
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 [...]
Now we have reached mid-September we are already seeing, in neighbouring gardens, the armies of neatnick gardeners (and garden contractors) intent on making the world “tidy” before winter. So annoying, so unnecessary … they should relax and make their gardens “messy” ones and leave the cleaning until spring when there isn’t much else to [...]