Yearly Archives: 2015

Recent cold nights have started the leaves turning in earnest in the mountains near me. This inviting path led along a grove of trees with brilliant colors, side by side with summery trees with green leaves. I imagine soon we will be approaching peak colors, but there are still many […]

This late flowering zinnia looks a bit like a blooming sun. The butterfly was sipping nectar and I positioned my camera to capture just a tiny bit of the wing with the rest just a silhouette formed by its shadow.  Zinnia flowers are known to attract butterflies and birds. They […]

At sunset this range of mountains took on a decidedly purple tone. I’m not so sure there are many fruited plains nearby but I definitely thought of the lyrics to America the Beautiful watching this scene unfold.  The words were first written in 1893 by English professor Katharine Bates as […]

Though few of these butterflies overwinter they fly well into autumn. Some flowers linger in an open field by my creek and I have a few still in my garden. In warmer years some may continue blooming even into early winter.  Already the leaves are turning but in the sun […]

A native of Asia, Euonymus alatus was introduced as a garden plant around 1860 to the U.S. One of the main reasons for its popularity along with its name is the vivid red fall colors as seen here.  Because it is invasive and threatens native plant populations there is some effort […]

Things are drying out and skies are perfect for sunsets. I spend more time sky watching these days thankful for dry weather. On the east coast sunsets tend to be more colorful in fall and winter because the air is cleaner and drier. Though sunsets look dramatic to us I […]

This vine grows on top of other plants and can extend 20 feet though usually in my yard it stays below around six feet high. I imagine if I took out a ruler and traced its circuitous path woven through and over shrubs it might be 30 feet long or […]

Carpenter bees are the tiny handymen of the insect world. When the honeybees have a party and leave honey stuck all over everything, who do they call? If you look really closely you can see the bee sized hammer in the left front…. Just kidding. They are actually named because […]

It sounds like a word to describe Martians, but actually refers to trees that hold their leaves longer than other species. There seem to be as many theories about this as the number of leaves on an average beech tree. It may be they are just moving from evergreen to […]