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Mid-December Miscellany

Ilex verticillata 'Winter Gold'; Nancy J. Ondra at Hayefield

Forget what the calendar says: Like many of you, I’m already thinking about spring. The fall spectacle is over, I have almost everything cut down, and there’s a whole box of seeds holding treasures for the upcoming growing season. In a “normal” year (whatever that is), we’d have likely been stuck inside for weeks by now, dealing with below-freezing temperatures and spells of snow and ice as well. This year, however, the seasons have been turned upside down: Our temperatures have been well above average for the last six weeks, feeling more like April and May than December. It was tempting to call this a Bloom Day post, but I don’t have any open blooms to share at the moment. There are still some nice-looking things, though. Continue reading Mid-December Miscellany

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Mid-Autumn Miscellany

Autumn rainbow at Hayefield.com

Apart from two light frosts in October, the weather has been mostly quite mild here in southeastern Pennsylvania, but we’re getting a taste of Novembery chill today. Knowing that the bad weather was coming, I took advantage of lingering blooms and fall-colored leaves a few days ago to have fun with some scans. But first, some odds and ends.

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Picture This – Changing Places

Lilium 'Black Beauty' in the Courtyard at Hayefield.com

It’s frigid and snow-covered here in the Arctic Pennsylvania, and the new growing season seems very far away, so it’s a good time to dip back into my photo archives and hunt for examples of different ways to keep a visual record of the garden. In the previous post–On the Spot–I discussed the idea of choosing set places to stand and reference points you could use to capture similar views at different times. But it’s just too cold to stand around right now, so let’s think about moving around a bit.

(As usual, you should be able to see plant ID info by hovering your cursor over each image. If you’d prefer that I use proper captions from now on, feel free to speak up. And FYI, I tried a new way to handle the photos this time, instead of letting Windows Live Writer upload them automatically. They’re still not full size, but I think they’re much clearer this way, and if you click on them, you can see larger versions. I hope you enjoy the better quality. I just ask that if you pin any of the images to Pinterest, you do it from here–at hayefield.com–and not from the enlarged versions at hayefield.files.wordpress.com; thanks. Now, back to the point.)

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