OKAY, IT DIDN’T LOOK LIKE THIS BUT WHO WANTS A PICTURE OF SLUSH ON A CAR?
I went out to hop in the car this morning and there it was, a little light slush on the window – first frost. Well, it was the first car frost, I didn’t see anything on the ground. I found an interesting website that has interactive maps showing average first frost dates right down to neighborhoods. Read more »
Koelreuteria paniculata, golden rain tree, 11/5/2012
I keep liking this tree more and more. The big seedpods, rather than looking ratty as I’d feared, give this tree a reddish glow in early November. I wanted to say “autumnal umber glow” but when I checked, the umber in my head didn’t agree with the color the all-knowing internet showed as umber. Read more »
A beauty and the beast kind of plant – fabulously scented late summer flowers and leaves that smell like peanut butter. Iridescent blue berries surrounded by hot pink calyces and surprisingly ugly fall color. A perfectly-sized tree for small gardens and a regrettable tendency to sucker. To plant or not to plant? Read more »
A. M. Leonard long handled cape cod weeder. This is what I have.
For more than 10 years I lived in a yard of many rockeries and a couple butted up against the field of blackberries and morning glory that my neighbor cultivated in her back yard. (The same neighbor that I found pruning our shared weeping Japanese laceleaf maple with hedge shears.) I didn’t really mind the blackberries, I’d just eat any that came in over the fence, but oh those morning glories. They would creep, slither and fly in – straight into crevices in the rockeries. Read more »
It looks a little bit like this Koelreuteria paniculata is having a frizzy hair day. The “frizz” is due to the seedpods; they stand out that way because the long (12-15″) flower panicles are held outside the leaf canopy, making for a splendid show in early summer. Why this tree is not more widely grown is beyond me. Read more »
Winner of the best berry you don’t actually eat award definitely goes to Callicarpa bodinieri, nicknamed (of course) beautyberry. This is the one of the first (and few) plants that my non-gardening husband suggested we plant. That was 15 years ago, still haven’t done it. Read more »
