Image of the day - 2012

[Kelaidis]

This is the compact form of Succisa pratensis, Ann--a cousin to the Scabiosas from Europe and naturalized in Canada. I have grown this dwarf form which is delightful (and lost it--do save seed!)...
Check Richard's: http://www.alpinegardensociety.net/diaries/Northumberland/+August+/122/

Regular Succisa pratensis is much larger.

[Spiegel]

Thanks, Panayoti.  Would you like some seed?

[Todd Boland]

Frilled Ivory still has tight buds so it will still have a decent spring display.  last year it produced one out of season bloom but this year, nearly 30 trusses is outrageous!

[cohan]

Yesterday, just out back of the house, only a few feet from the mowed zone.. fall colour on Epilobium angustifolium

[cohan]

This shot was in full shade, so not very exciting lighting, but a nice combination of plants for early  fall--
Maianthemum stellatum, Symphoricarpos albus, Petasites palmatus behind, which will turn its own subtle colours; Cornus canadensis and Pyrola asarifolia behind..  this is in the woods behind my house..

[Tim Ingram]

Nice vignette of foliage just spiced up by those two berries! Autumn is a great time to catch pictures like this if you are lucky enough to find them. We are surrounded by housing and fields with little natural vegetation so it must be nice to walk out of your back door and find plants like this.

[Howey]

Prettiest flower today in the Western University greenhouse is something called Orthosiphon  - a medicinal plant from South Asia.  Did this from a cutting a couple of years ago.  Fran

Frances Howey
London, Ontario, Canada
Zone 5b

[Lori S.]

Love the subtle colours, Cohan... and what a contrast with the exotic flower you are showing, Fran.

Here's some fall colour from along the Clearwater River in NE Alberta, east of Fort McMurray... Autumn has been very mild all over the province - we were told there has not even been frost up there yet!  (The presence of a goodly number of blackflies seemed to support that!)



Here, we had our first frost in the third week of August - on the roofs only, not on the ground - followed by a frost hard enough to kill tender annuals in the second week of September.

[cohan]

Thanks, Tim- yes, tons of beautiful close images out there right now, and an overall golden glow. As Lori mentions, we, like the rest of the province, are having a very warm September, as well as, for me, the driest spell we've had all year, and the driest fall we've had in several years- good for farmers needing to harvest! The warm weather is a bit of a comfort for me, since I did some rather late plantings, and was hoping things would have some time to get settled in- the irony is that I've had to do some watering of new plantings, when I scarcely watered all summer, even small seedpots stayed moist...
I thing we've had enough frost to kill tender annuals too, though I don't really have any to be sure- in town there are still flowers looking undamaged, though we've definitely had rooftop frosts and several nights reportedly below 0C- enough to encourage the trees to turn, native plants to colour and garden plants to show a little extra foliage colour, though Geranium, Achillea, Cyclamen have still been flowering, as are some native asters, with others in seed..

Nice view, Lori- were you up there for work? Thank goodness the blackflies don't make it this far south! And mosquitoes have finally settled down in the last couple of weeks, not gone, but no longer overwhelming..

Nice flower, Fran- were you just visiting there, or do you have a work connection to the greenhouse? Nice to have access to some kind of indoor greenspace as the days get shorter and cooler...

Another couple shots from the acreage, Viburnum edule lovely in its fall colour, even if the smell of the plants in fall is less than sweet-- they are common here, and a patch can scent the area for some metres around them; All our fall reds are in the understory,and there are some good ones, but all the deciduous native trees turn  yellow, just the occasional aspen partly/barely hitting orange..
Cornus canadensis (just can't remember that new name yet without looking it up) These are common enough to dot the forest floor with red in some spots without a lot of taller understory, and to shine through the grasses, shrubs and forbs in other places..

[Lori S.]

Nice view, Lori- were you up there for work?

Yes, a geology field trip... and from our hike this weekend, here's a glimpse of larch season in the mountains:

[cohan]

Great view! The tamaracks are just barely starting to turn here, usually they are the last of the native trees to do so..
Here's an aspen in the yard...

[Hoy]

That Orthosiphon (never heard of the genus though) reminds me of a Cleome  Very nice!

You seem to have some great colours yourself, Cohan

Lori, nice view and walk! We have no native laches in Norway but several species are planted. It is a small larch wood not far from here. It always gets nice yellow colour in fall - but later!

[cohan]

Thanks, Trond- I always wish we had more red and orange in the fall colours ( I loved the fall colours when I lived in Toronto- many more colours, and it lasted much longer)- lots of colour in the understory here, but only yellow for the native trees, and I have no red exotics either.. I have some Acer rubrum planted, but they are only a few inches tall, and other things even smaller...lol
We don't have many exotic trees, and my favourite is Tilia cordata for its shape, but that turns yellow too...
Things are fairly glowing right now though with many of the poplars at full gold..

More yellow, a Salix sp, growing wild in the strip of land (road allowance) between us and the neighbours
And a different fall colour- white! Viburnum edule, in a paler colour than the usual pink and red.. judging by the holey leaves, the slugs had a good year not only  in my yard-many/most of the plants in the forest seem chewed up!
Hieracium umbellatum (if I've correctly id'd this common plant here) may be showier in its fall guise than at any other time- especially in the shady places it often appears.. still haven't got a photo I really like, but you get the idea of the ghostly foliage floating above the carpet of dark clover (dang weed), moss and aster foliage etc..
Finally, a Petasites I always hesitate to name them, since all leaf forms from pure arrow to fully palmate occur in great numbers here, often very close to one another.. this is an intermediate shape; all these photos are on our 6 acres..

[Hoy]

Whitish colours are rare here although I have seen it. The commonest colours are yellow-brown.
Cohan are you sure it isn't caterpillars or beetles gnawing on the leaves in the wood?

[cohan]

Trond, no I'm not sure what is gnawing on the plants, and likely it's many things! but the plants do have the overall look that some plants in my garden got when I finally realised the slugs were going crazy when it was so wet in mid-summer-- usually I wasn't outside in the evening since the mosquitoes would be unbearable as soon as the sun goes behind the trees (or a cloud), but when my sister's family was visiting I was out later once, it had rained in the afternoon, so it was nice and damp and the slugs were out in droves, crawling all over the rock gardens and up plants several feet off the ground etc... that's when I got the slug pellets...lol

Here are some more whites- provided mainly by Equisetum..