Autumn is about coloured leaves-- but the best ones aren't necessarily in trees!

Wow, it's been awhile since I posted anything here; it was one of those summers of whims and lack of get-to-it-ness.

Anyways, one frosty morn last week, while walking the dog, I was treated to a frost display that was fantastic. Of course, no camera, and by the time I could have gone back for it the frost would have been gone: sun was about to touch the plants. But this morning conditions aligned just right again, and this time I did take the camera, and so got these photos of Potentilla repens frost-touched and autumn-coloured.

This plant is a weedy thing around here, forming vast carpets by runnering (long ones), by seeding, by producing corms: programmed for survival. Flowers are dainty, mid-yellow, but sparse so it doesn't really make it as a garden groundcover. On a few open patches of the not-so-old logging road behind me where I walk with Gershwin (the dog) are a few large patches of it. The patches which are shaded from morning sun by the trees are nicely coloured in fall, but it takes a touch of the frost-brush to show them at their best. So here, unprocessed except for size reduction, are several pics of a lowly weed in stunning display.

In bloom 21/23 April

Helleborus hybrid, the first one I managed not to kill.





Oh wow, suddenly a hint of yellow where none should have been: Helleborus orientalis/ caucasicus. From wild-collected seed obtained from British Botanist Will McLewin.


And this beauty, also so unexpected. Grown from seed obtained from a seed exchange, I knew it was from a yellow-flowered parent but wasn't really expecting a yellow flower due to the promiscuity of Hellebores. In bud, and for the first day when opened, it was more pale green than yellow; a nice surprise the second morning. Yellow intensifying for a few days now.

Grown from seed from deep red to black parents. Very very dark in bud.




Grown from seed from Apricot/ Peach flowered parents. Three are flowering now, and they are probably not up to their mom's quality. They're all quickly going towards green. Obviously one needs to grow a lot of seedlings of good parentage to get a really special plant in that colour shade.

Daphne mezereum, February Daphne, a very fragrant flowering shrub.







A small seedling of a white form. The fragrance is more lemony than the normal form.



Primula denticulata, the Drumstick Primula.




The crocuses in the sunny sand bed are about done (but some in lawns with a bit of shade are still going strong)


Chionodoxa sardensis, a species of Glory in the Snow. A superb blue (even under the shadow of my head)



Coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara), a very pretty and bright weed. Unfortunately the leafs, which emerge later, a large and smothering.


Hepatica nobilis, a blue strain.





Hepatica acutiloba, a native of eastern Canada. There is some colour variation in this species, into pale pink and pale violet-blue.

Priorities...

Sunny and warm today (an accidental almost summer) (not to worry, the weather is forecast to return to cold and drear by the weekend). An hour of yardwork before lunch, 4 hours on the bike after lunch. Warm enough for bare legs (Yesss!) although my ride to Avonport on the Minas Basin managed to find cold air wafting off the water. Last year it wasn't until the end of May that I tackled a similar distance, and at a slightly slower speed. The only question now is, will I "recover" overnight?

Thanks to some "farmer Joe" near Avonport moving a heap of fresh manure from his barn on one side of the road to his other barn on the other side of the road -- too short a distance to bother with a wagon, so he just pushed it across with the bucket of a front-end loader -- I managed to get a bit shit-faced without the pleasure of a decent bottle of wine. Fortunately it was the top of a hill rather than the bottom of a descent so it was possible to manoevre so as to avoid the lumpy bits... all in all, a bit dodgy. No photos, but Gershwin (the dog) was very interested in the smell of the tires and undersides of the frame when I got home.

Everywhere I rode there was the sound of badly-adjusted derailleurs (chain scraping cogs) but it wasn't me-- it was an army of homeowners raking the winter's gravel off their lawns and back onto the road shoulders where it belonged.

2008 postings at last: Signs of Spring

Yes folks, despite the stuff the Weather Channel is waffling about, Signs of Spring are in the air. Primarily, I passed an outdoor flea market today while out on the bike...

Crocuses showed up with today's sun.

Helleborus niger, up against the house.




Snowdrops almost ready to open.






Bike and snowshoes together... says a bit about the state of the trails in the woods here.

Paeonia lactiflora

The grand precursor of the garden peony is still growing in the wilds of Mongolia and Northern China, and their seeds are collected by a few dedicated botanists from time to time. I obtained about 10 seedlings from collections made by J Halda in the Altai mountains; these 2 are the first to bloom this year. They're in a sunnier bed than the datum display bed. I'm not sure why hybridizers insist on trying to improve on nature... Nice strong stems, heady fragrance, clean simple lines-- a fine way to start the end of peony season, these are my last species to flower.

Delicate but tough: Paeonia obovata

A woodland peony from Siberia, this species has ridiculously thin stems, and yet they are strong enough to stay upright all winter here, despite wet snow that levels most other peony stems. The relatively small flowers of the seedlots I've grown remain globular, the one in the photo is as open as they get (until the petals fall off).

Here is a group in the display bed.





One of my plants in the woods had the crown of the root exposed by erosion last winter. In spring it looked like it had had the biscuit, but eventually a single stalk emerged from it. I've since covered it over with more soil and mulch. (photo from 6 May)

I was also surprised earlier this year by the flowering of two plants of Paeonia obovata var. alba which were growing in 1-gallon pots (that's supposed to be a transition size for one year only but the transplanting "schedule" went all awry the past few years and a lot of plants are still languishing in the small pots). Due to their location in pot farms they warmed and developed earlier than the plants in the display bed, blooming a few weeks ago. To avoid confusion I decided not to post the photos until the rest of obovata were in flower.

The flowers are from different seed sources (both are from plants in cultivation, the first from a seed exchange, the second one generation removed from a wild collection); note the difference in the colour of the stamens in the second one. Flowers in both of these are larger and open more widely (almost flat) than the rest of the obovata I've grown.

More of Paeonia peregrina

I am delighting in this species since it is the first year that it has amounted to much for me. Flowers and stems may still not be full size, but they are much larger than last year.

Two are now in bloom, one being a bit darker than the other (this is the one shown two days ago). Some variation in petal shape and in



leaf segmentation and shape between them too.