Wintery Mix

Yesterday we experienced our first ‘wintery mix’ of the season – although it was more freezing rain than anything else. I took photographs through windows of the house; it was too cold and hazardous footing to venture out. It was a good day to stay at home. Our gutters started filling up with ice (but the downspouts stayed clear)

And the skylight on the covered part of our deck was covered with a layer of ice and fringed with small icicles.

Ice coated vegetation too. A small limb on one of our trees broke as I watched. There might be others that have split that will require trimming next spring. The pine branches are leaning – looking like giant bottle brushes – but will straighten as the ice melts.

The evergreen bushes caught water on their leaves that froze as it dripped off – a mini-cascade.

The azalea bush outside our front door is my favorite with its reddish leaves turned to cups for ice – overflowing.

Later in the day, the temperature climbed above freezing and much of the ice melted enough to fall from the trees. This was not an event that lingered!

Raking Leaves – 2

I started raking leaves toward the middle of October and still have quite a lot to do based on the leaves still clinging to the trees. Even the oak that was my focus in October still has some leaves – although there are noticeably fewer still on the tree. I’ve raked the area around the purple-leaved plum tree too although the tree still has leaves on it too; they don’t change color – they just fall. They are more fragile than the oak leaves and compress more easily into the trash can.

I noticed a small pine tree growing in the mulch of oak tree.  Maybe a squirrel planted a pine nut there? If it survives the winter – I’ll dig it up in the spring and move it someplace where it can grow more easily.

I’ve also noticed that a small azalea that is about 25 years old has turned red this fall when the sun shines on it. It looks good in front of the green bushes…and I should do some weeding around it while I’m out raking leaves.

In the back – I rake the leaves back into the forest. The maple is just beginning to drop its leaves. They fall more rapidly than the oak leaves once they start. Every breeze makes the tulip poplar and maple leaves swirl away from the trees. I’ve made one pass so far….and know that there will be at least one more…probably two…over the next week or so.

The best of the rest of Brookside

There was a lot more than fiddleheads, azaleas and goslings at Brookside Gardens last week….so this post is a ‘best of the rest’ from my collection of pictures.

The Red Buckeye near the conservatory parking lot was blooming.

I’d never looked at the flower up close before. I looked it up and discovered that it is closely related to the horse chestnut.

The jack-in-the-pulpits were coming up. These are flowers that one has to be looking for to spot although these striped ones are pretty distinctive.

Many times the leaves and the flowers are almost the same color.

The dogwoods were blooming too. Depending where they are in the garden they can be still green in the center

Or already yellow.

And there are some that are very different – from Asia rather than our native variety of dogwood.

There as a chipmunk sorting through the debris in a concrete culvert – finding seeds.

The area of the gardens that has been ‘under construction’ for the past few years was open and there were yellow irises around the pond,

A newly planted magnolia with large leaves and mature blooms, and

A robust stand of horsetails.

I noticed a bench that evidently is not used often ... judging from the plants growing around it.

I’d never noticed how the bark of this Hawthorne wrinkled as the branches flared out from the trunk!

Even the pines have interesting features in the spring.

It’s a great time of year to take a closer look at the garden!

Zooming – March 2016

In February – birds dominated the zooming post. This month there is more variety. The first two collages are from Brookside Gardens – and are all plants in the conservatory.

Outside the plants were mostly dried vegetation from last falls – but the collage below contains a feather too.

And then we get to some birds: snow geese and a yellow legs. I liked the shell within a shell shape.

Shelf fungus and pine codes --- pine needles as background for heads of a Great Blue Heron and an egret.

A splintered tree trunk – a physical reminder of how power storms can be. Tundra swans with sunrise colors in water and sky as background.

Close up of two birds revealed the red in their eye. The frog looks happy to be surveying the pool with lots of eggs already laid. The daffodil is just the beginning of the spring flowers.