A Garden Month (to 24 Aug 2019) Pictures follow Even back in late July some end-of-summery things were already being noticed such as a small group of Waxwings taking berries from the Dogwood bushes on a hot and windy day … the sort of day on which it is perfect for Japanese Beetles to [...]
A little Sunday morning magicThis tiny bird appeared to accompany the Sunday morning cup of tea … the red flowers are Cuphea (Mexican cigar plant) and have proved to be the best attractor of Hummingbirds we have ever grown. They are not hardy, but plant some where you can nsee them next summer and [...]
Berries and Birds Everyone has remarked on the amazing size and variety of the tree fruit crop this year - and it has not gone unnoticed by the juvenile American Robins in our garden who have started to fill and fatten themselves on the bounty - observed by some young Song Sparrows. [...]
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 [...]
Another error of common naming A common tree/shrub in North America is the Sumac, around here mostly the Staghorn Sumac (Rhus typhina), athough there are several other species in the genus. A good row of them grow along the boundary of the Garden at Fritz where I volunteer every summer and shelter [...]
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 [...]
Very Tiny Bees A very trending topic, as they say, at the moment is how to encourage pollinator species not to go extinct die to habitat loss, insecticidal sprays and climate change. This something we are hastily in favour of. Trouble is, when we think about pollinators we usually think [...]
I have had a city park near to me pretty well all my life and because they have always been there I have rather taken it for granted that they always would be. Some parks have been wide open with trees and grass and sometimes a lake. While others have been more formal [...]