What do you see on your garden walks? 2012

[Hoy]

Has to be armchair botanising for me the next days. Although it is mild now (+7C) we have a lot of snow. Farther south they were hit hard by the gale and a train and several hundred cars were caught in the snowdrives. Hundreds of people had to stay all night in the cars. If this had happened in the mountains nobody had rised an eyebrow but this is in the lowland and in the mildest part of the country    When I was out driving last night it reminded me more of a mountain crossing than a trip to the airport!

[RickR]

Euonymus hamiltonianus var. sieboldianus fruit.  All harvested on 3 October.  

15 days later:
The left, dried in relative darkness in the garage, the right is an outdoor dried bouquet remaining at my south facing doorstep.
              

26 days later:
              

Picea asperata and Liriodendron tuliperifera seed heads.
        

Gymnocladus dioicus and Pinus strous 'Wintergold'
        


Pinus ponderosa    

Fibigia clypeata
          

[Hoy]

So, you do have snow too, Rick! Nice trees Think I still have to wait some years for my specimen to flower!
I hadn't time to picture my snowclad trees - no daylight when I had time and no snow left on them when I had daylight

[Bundraba!]

Some more frost action; still no snow   still no cold   Saxifrages; 'Hamilton' Cranberry; Androsace sempervivioides -special because it came from seed set here; and Shortia. The drawing is three (four) sided pyramid rock crevice garden concept: I know -way over the top. May I build you one? LOL!

[Hoy]

Hi Michael, how come you have frost action without cold?

Now the cold is back here after a few mild days. The hellebore is later than usual but has managed to free itself from much of the snow. The Farrer viburnum is late too but has flowered and new buds are forming. It is still snow patches in front of my house.

[Spiegel]

Here, the frost comes at night, then disappears when the temperatures rise during the day.  So far, we are having a non-winter.  Joe had to cancel a ski trip to Vail in early December because of lack of snow.  I check the garden every day speaking sternly to plants showing signs of ignoring the shutting down for winter process.  Last week I found a Gentiana dinarica bloom (measely and not fully open, but still...).

[cohan]

Nice views, Rick and Michael, Rick- do you have lasting snow?
Anne- you just need to book those ski trips a bit farther north- the ski season started weeks early at many places in Alberta! And the next few days the mountain parks will be some of the warmest places in the province (apart from hot spots like Lethbridge and Calgary!). Our normal daytime this time of year is -6C, today we are forecast to be -7/8 and then -15/-19C daytimes for the rest of the week; still, nights only -19 to -23C, and we could have -30/-40 this time of year..

[RickR]

Before climate change, we always had continuous snow through the winter.  Now, who knows?  Last season, the severe drought lasted right through the winter, and I think we had more winter days without snowcover than with.  Now the bulk of the snow seems to pass just to the south of me.  So, southern Minnesota and Iowa get the snow I would usually get.  They are getting a blizzard right now.

I feel sorry for the children here, when I think of the loads of fun we had as kids sliding down hills, grooming the runs, building snow forts, etc.  On the other hand, nowadays they probably would much rather play with there video games, anyway.

[Bombax]

Rick,

Your garden looks great. That ponderosa really is narrow at this point. Your tulip tree flowered very heavily.

John

[cohan]

My mother talks about really large amounts of snow when she was younger (snowdrifts nearly to the top of power poles! But I wonder if it was a matter of less forest cover so more severe drifting), but in my lifetime we've never had that- we usually have reasonable cover in mid winter but it can vary from nearly bare in parts of mostly coniferous woods to closer to a couple of feet in low/wetlands.
Fortunately in recent years with so much wild weather around, we have not been far from 'normal' summer or winter...

[RickR]

Hi John!

Glad to see you've made your debut here.  Welcome!

When the leaves drop in the fall, I always find that the Liriodendron bloomed more heavily then I had thought.  ....this season especially.

               

[Bundraba!]

No more doting on the little plants in this garden this year.

[Bundraba!]

But still a few hours left in this year to dote on the big plants in this garden!

     

Veiw of back yard after snow; Rhodopolis; Sage Brush by lamp post and ladenus Taxus

[Hoy]

Michael, seems you still have full winter over there!

The winter did leave us last week here but we will have it back later for sure  Today I managed to get outside between the showers. Not much to see though and everything is completely soaked. The Cyclamen (hederifolium) is still in leaf despite the cold we had and the hellebores try to flower as soon as they can (H. niger hybrid and foetidus).

      

[Bundraba!]

Trond, I enjoy news of happenings in your tropical (comparatively) garden. There are stories of success with Cyclamen in the region though I'm apt to start an argument with those story tellers  Cyclamen in my garden so far have departed along with the most tender of the avian set around the time the first snowflake falls. The Helleborus foetidus types may burn to death if we get a real winter with little snow though I find H. orientalis, having a strong below ground component, quite tough. The weather folks here are saying the snow we have now (15 inches) is apt to stick around a while. A gentle mass of arctic air, deemed "modified" is to send a few ripples over us and temperatures at night are expected to drop to below zero F. Totally different than last winter so far!