Stump Life

Quick, before the snow comes, take a look at this stump:

I'm not sure how old it is, maybe somewhere in the 20-year range, but it is almost completely covered in various mosses, lichens, fungi and liverworts. A great many different things are growing on it:

I particularly like the miniature moss-ball. Some mosses, like the blue one at the top, grow by spreading sideways, others by growing from a fixed centre. Yet others, like the one on the bottom, seem to head off for parts unknown like tiny explorers.

Looking even closer, I am amazed at some of the  wonderful patterns that appear:

Too bad I don't have my microscope with me!

Leaves

Every year about this time I go nuts on leaves. Coloured leaves, that is. Here is a collage of some:

And here is a shot of one of the perks of Autumn - something that re-blooms late, giving an unexpected bonus of colour: 

This is Campanula rotundifolia, Harebell. The background, although it is hard to tell from the picture, is an outcropping of pink granite. Harebells seed themselves all over, usually in better places than the gardener might have thought of. This particular plant has come through several nights of frost and is still going strong.

OK, there's a metaphor there and I get it.

The autumn colours have been spectacular this year.... there have been all kinds of surprise re-blooms (coneflowers in October???)..... I'm mulling over a whole range of changes for next year. Hard to do anything now, for one thing I can't see where anything is because of the fallen  leaves and the fact that some plants are completely dormant; for another, I don't want to spear too many daffodil bulbs. But, come Spring, there'll be a hot time in the ol' town....

United Colours of Autumn

The foliage colours this year are just amazing! These are the trees at the entrance to my Sampler garden. The Maples just glow against the background of still-green birches and oaks.

At the base of the Rock Garden one Maple is particularly red:

I always like the fall colours best when there is still a lot of green to set off the yellows and reds. I did quite a bit of driving around today, doing chores, and everywhere the trees were magnificent. This is still a farming area, so the country is a patchwork of corn and soybean fields, pastures and woods. Many of the trees are still green, making the yellow, orange and red ones really stand out.

 It occurred to me, looking across a rust-red soybean field to a line of yellow and orange maples, that this is the true Canadian Mosaic!

Rain!

Finally, rain!

Drought

As you may have noticed, I have not been posting lately.

We have been, and still are, in the grip of the worst drought ever recorded in my area.

I am simply too sad about the effects on my woods and garden to go out and look at them, let alone talk about them. Of course, I know my concerns are not as serious as those of people whose income crops are lost, but that doesn't make it any less painful for me. As someone said, 'you love your rose according to how many hours you have wasted on it', and I have wasted years on this rose.


This has been my third or fourth major gardening effort.

As soon as it rains again, I will begin the fifth one.

Hooker's Orchid

No, not a corsage ornament for a lady with a questionable job choice!


But an actual orchid,  Platanthera Hookeri, or Hooker's Orchid. It is a not-uncommon find in the woods in our area, although there are rarely very many plants. Most 'colonies' consist of one to a few plants, but luckily they tend to be long-lived.  Like many of our native orchids, it does not deal well with competition, so you will normally find it in bare and shady spots under such trees as Eastern White Cedar or White Spruce. On occasion you may find it under deciduous trees as well. 

This shows the plant in my woods in a very typical situation - under some pines, in a bare spot, well-drained, but shady and cool, and accompanied by such typical companions as Violets, Wild Lily-of-the-Valley, Solomon's Seal and Wild Sarsaparilla.  The two large leaves immediately tell us it is one of the 'pad' orchids, which are in the Platanthera gang, and the green flowers tell us it is P. Hookeri. By the way, when a botanical name is a person's name, you may give it a capital letter or not, as you please. I like the capital, it reminds me that the plant was named after a real person.

There are two other 'pad' orchids in our area: P. macrophylla and P. orbiculata. Neither of these have green flowers. Both have larger leaves, and the leaves of P. orbiculata are, as the name implies, quite round.

 Here you can see the long spur, typical for the Platantheras, and the 'hooked' shape of the lip. I don't think John Lindley, another prominent early botanist who named the plant, intended the pun!

These are not orchids to grow in your garden. If you happen to find one, photograph it, admire it, salute Sir Hooker, and move on. Who was he?

Sir William Jackson Hooker was a botanist, botanical illustrator, lecturer and organizer who was active in England during the mid 19th. century. He put much effort into amassing an enormous herbarium, one that became very well-known in his time. He is credited with having helped to revive Kew Gardens, and it is noted that his son, who succeeded him at Kew, was as popular and successful as he was.

My reference makes no mention of the state of  his morals.

PURPLE!

It's a purple purple, Purely purple, Purple Day Today!

Went for a short walkabout in the garden this morning (after a night of very welcome rain) and was surprised at how many purple things were in bloom. I remembered going through a purple phase many years ago, and with a smile and pang for my youthful self, realized that I still like purple.

A pale pale purple Veronica.

A soft slate-purple Amsonia.

 

 

 

 

Perky purple Fairy Bells poking up around the Irises.

A Clematis echoing the colour of the Fairy Bells.

Irises (how did I end up with so many Irises?),

Columbines,

Lupines, all in shades of bluish purple.

The astonishing flowers of Alkanet, tiny but feisty.

Anemone lesseri. How can you not love this little face?

A tall Erodium,

The pinwheel flowers of a white Centaurea montana,

The simple perfection of a tiny Johnny-jump-up.

A speckled 'fall' on a Japanese Roof Iris, with an, ahem, pollinator.

And the final word in purple, the very definition of the colour purple, a Siberian Iris petal.