@dangerine49, good afternoon J, what amazing photos, a new perspective to give even more interest in maples on the forum and other plants of course. Re Garnet not dropping it's leaves, I've had several over the years that have done this. I always defoliate by hand if they won't drop. I've always remembered many decades ago being told by an old maple grower that leaves should be removed if they fail to drop, to prevent disease.
Well the forecast was spot on, we awoke to snow covering everything. All so pretty and cheerful on the bare bones and the new buds are there to be seen all ready for two months time.
13 year old Baldsmith JM jungle- mess Viridis Mess 20 year old osakazuki in a 175 ltr pot needs moving into a 250..it’s so heavy!
A nest fell from my big prunus, less than 20 cm in diameter outside, I'm not sure but maybe it was a blackbird's nest. There's another one still up the tree (some 8 metres high) I hope it's not a magpie's : I can often see some around, but they're predators, I much prefer the smaller ones around. There's also a couple of "tourterelles", I don't know if they're the same couple every year, but like pidgeons, they don't seem to have had any training on how to build a nest : it falls everytime there's a strong wind, but apparently, they seem to reproduce well enough. When I was a kid, in Spring, the ones that our neighbour kept in a (very) big birdcage would wake us up in the morning. "CuKrru, çuKrru, çuKrru,..." my father would imitate ;0) Each year - maybe as late as June actually, I wait for their call to wake up ;°) Makes think of a law that was passed a couple of days here (or a decree, or a bill, but that's now part of the jurisdiction) : Former city dwellers can't sue their neighbours : in the countryside they can't sue the locals because they've got sheep that "baaa", roosters that "cock-a-doodle-do", or cicadas that prevent them to get to sleep (frankly, cicadas in summer are worse than living by a motorway in a big city !) I still see a lot of small birds of several species every day in my very small garden, almost ashamed to plan mowing the lawn some day...
Every year we get nests of American robin (Turdus migratorius) with amazing blue colored eggs, chipping sparrow (Spizella passerina), eastern phoebe under the deck (Sayornis phoebe), and most exciting, ruby throated hummingbird (Archilochus colubris), just few feet from our kitchen windows (picture below). They camouflage the nest with lichen, plenty of it in the yard...
Some maple bare bones in deep snow. The third one is a rather tall 2 years old seedling, but you wouldn’t know it looking at it now.
Never see anything like that in the South of England. We had one inch in January after eight years of waiting.
This is my 'Emperor 1' bare bones today with buds swelling very nicely. This cultivar is always one of the last to leaf out, so I'm surprised to see it like this at the beginning of February. Very cold all next week so that will slow things down a bit.
Now that is deep J, what does Maggie think of it ? Your maples will be fast asleep for some time looking at all that white stuff. Aaaaarrhh Harry the pirate here to give us all a smile once again.
Don't know if Maggie has actually seen her first snowfall. We are visiting her this afternoon. But she's pretty happy about things in general:
Now if anyone is feeling down or depressed by the state of everything atm, just look at these beautiful photos of Maggie and say it hasn't brought a smile to your face...... It has here, thankyou J.
Shishigashira at left, Ornatum at right, and an unknown dissectum in the back that could be crimson queen or garnet: Inaba shidare behind dissectum viridis: Bloodgood or artropurpureum: Third next pics are the unknown dissectum from first picture: Ornatum:
I haven't noticed swelling on most of mine except these two : The Acer laevigatum I repotted 2 weeks ago. Of course I kept them about a week in my gagarge (about 13°c) for a couple of days and they're in a protected area, but they're very early. See this thread : Acer laevigatum Another one that seems to be a bit early is my Acer elegantulum that already shows some green : I also have a potted Pseudocydonia (Chinese quince) which is always very early, last year it lost all its new leaves but fortunately pulled out new ones. Once again, it's very, very early, but this year, I put it close to the garge door so on Sunday I'll take it inside again ;°) I already noticed that species that are historically from the north and colonized further south (in thousands of years) are the last ones to bud out, they kept a kind od genetic clock in their genes, like Fagus or Fraxinus.
