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 [...]
Eastern Chipmunk - Tamias striatus Although every other creature in Quebec other than Coyotes has visited our garden in the 21 years we have been here we have never seen a Chipmunk before, so we were really happy to see this young fellow scurry across the deck after a major wind and rain [...]
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 [...]
Two years ago as part of the creation of the Canada 150 Trail in the Morgan Arboretum a subset of volunteers from the friends of the Morgan Arboretum created "The Copse". As I have said in earlier posts, this is a small collection of trees and shrubs, all native species, selected for their [...]
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 [...]
Living with Wildlife Not infrequently after looking at a plant or bird picture that we have shared here or on Facebook people ask if they can see our "wildlife" garden ... not everyone lives close enough to book one of our guided tours so this is what (part of) it looks like on [...]
Moss - Fruiting Bodies One of the several mosses lining the sides of the waterfall in our garden - the elevated parts are the spore-containing reproductive capsules which together with their stalks form the sporophyte of the plant.