Just a quick post while i am switching my summer wheels on the car. My shishio hime is the most advanced of all my maples, he is on fire:
On another hand I was outside a minute ago and was looking closely at the shishio hime and was telling myself I was dumb to say it's not that good earlier. There was too much natural light with the sun or maybe it is because I was in a rush. Now that I took the time to look at the leaves details, I am impressed how beautiful is this cultivar. It happens to me all the time, I wonder why I bought a maple and find it almost ugly then some weeks or months later I realise why i made the purchase in the past. All those cultivars are always surprising when you take the time to focus on one in particular. I felt like if I had just received a new maple... As far as I have the choice, I am not stopping this addiction to live with maples anytime soon.
I've done the same I, but then as time goes on and the shape improves you realise why it was purchased.
The birds were singing at 0530hrs this morning and the sun was rising so it was time for that first cup of coffee in the garden, oh how I've missed doing that for the last what seems like forever !!! Does everyone else feel that it was a very long Winter? Anyway, I saw a few of mine that were coming along quite nicely for March and thought I would post them. They are Peve Multicolour, Viridis, Edna Bergmann and the last one 'Peaches and cream' even had a Bee on it, so that shows how the weather is changing quite rapidly now.
Hello D., I feel that, every year as I hate winter due to the cold, lack of sun and nature beeing dormant. About this winter, I agree with you, maybe one of the reason is that we entered in the second year of the pandemic that stole from most of us the liberty and joy we used to have and appreciate without knowing it until 2019 and is making us impatient to enjoy the garden, as most hobbies and social relationing are kind of extinted for an unknown period. Anyway winter is behind us, so let's all enjoy the coming spring and summer the most we can. What a simple but great pleasure to have a coffee at early morning watching our maples right?
Good evening I, so glad that we think alike, nice thought that so many of us do the same in the mornings amongst our trees. Simple pleasures!!
I was momentarily shocked when I read that the sun would be rising at 5:30 in the morning and then realized it would be here too if not for the fact that we are now on Daylight Saving Time. So, instead of a 6:13am sunrise today, it is 7:13am . . . which gains us an extra hour of daylight in the evening. Together with the light sky before sunrise and after sunset, it makes for a nice long day, no matter what we call the hour.
We are as well this Saturday night, so the early morning coffee in the garden will definatly be a bit later.
Things are beginning to show strong progress now, not so much JMs but a few of those are well swelled, Or even leafing a bit. My phone has become very frustrating for digital macro work. We have a "bridge" camera Adele got a couple of years ago for business, I am going to have to either learn to use it or buy a new phone. Neither option thrills me a lot. The red buds of Acer mandshuricum are spectacular every year. Acer pensylvanicum is one of the first our from Section Macrantha, though the sub-tropical A. kawakamii (ex A. caudatifolium) has been out for weeks. A, trifllorum ready to burst into flower. It is a great show, but difficult to photograph as the flowers are small. Acer velutinum, I guess this one may be a pseudoplatanus hybrid. I hope to separate out the hybrids later this year. Seems like maybe 'Komachi hime?' I didn't look at the label! This is A. buergerianum ssp formosanum, I hope it will harden off and no longer come out so early. Probably lived in a greenhouse. Acer fabri starting into some enthusiastic growth, happily in spring and not fall, which it did at first. This one is from Mr Maple. Acer sikkimense in their second year. I hope these are true, because the one in the garden looks to be dying. Dipteronia sinensis, that close cousin of maples at one time called Acer dielsii Finally here are some important spring subjects: Praise be! The coffee machine has returned from the repair shop. Sam and Miko, Cooper and Sam. Old Cooper has been unwell again, with a terrible cyst on his face from a rotten tooth. Unfortunately the only option left is to pull the tooth, which operation is this Friday. His odds of making it are pretty good, but it's always dangerous to anesthetize an old dog.
@emery wonderful E and now with fresh coffee, doesn't get much better at any time of the year, but Spring is always special. My fingers are crossed for Cooper for Friday.
At our neighbors 2 doors down this morning, guess I need to keep my eyes peeled as I look for new growth in the yard.
Bears are so impressive. I vividly remember my close encounter with a black bear in our yard. In addition to the robins and phoebes, I just witnessed a bat flying outside. Spring has arrived here!
Here in BC, Grizzly Bears are far more to be feared than Black Bears. Thankfully, I have encountered neither although I have heard Black Bears have been seen in my neighbourhood from time to time. So far, Grizzly Bears live far away from us. The sign above may be hard to read - and obviously, from the male-centric language, not written by the BC Fish and Wildlife Branch - (funny, none-the-less). WARNING Due to the frequency of human-bear encounters, the B.C. Fish and Wildlife Branch is advising hikers, hunters, fishermen and any persons that use the out of doors in a recreational or work related function to take extra precautions while in the field. We advise the outdoorsman to wear little noisy bells on clothing so as to give advance warning to any bears that might be close by so you don't take them by surprise. We also advise anyone using the out-of-doors to carry 'Pepper Spray' with him in case of any encounter with a bear. Outdoorsmen should also be on the watch for fresh bear activity and be able to tell the difference between black bear feces and grizzly bear feces. Black bear feces is smaller and contains lots of berries and squirrel fur. Grizzly bear shit has bells in it and smells like pepper.
Early spring will soon be morphing into "it's really spring!" 20C forecast soon. And then more frost. It is the nervous season. So go for it! Thanks to an outage at work managed to get 2 trees planted this afternoon. One is a nice dwarf seedling from Villa Tarranto, the other an unknown dwarf, maybe 'Aratama'? I will post pics when it leafs out, but I'm no good at IDing cultivars. @wind-borne that bear is awesome! Somehow black bears are scarier than brown, we used to see brown bears in Maine sometimes, but I can't remember anyone ever getting in trouble with them. Forget about grizzlies: I once saw one at a distance, and was seriously frightened. Maybe because as a child I always thought the scariest thing in the Natural History Museum in NY was the grizzly skeleton. Well, that and the giant mosquito!
I've had 5 personal encounters with the bears in recent years as well as seeing in the distance and looking out windows at them. Twice in the yard and three times walking down the road. I can't imagine wanting to pepper spray one, they have all turned and walked away upon noticing me except one which stood on its hind legs and shifted its head side to side while observing me. I do carry a horn which is supposed to put out 120db with a mile range but have never used it in the encounters. A giant mosquito though, yikes. For me a tiger shark swimming beneath my sailboard was captivating though left me shaken afterwards.