Emperor 1 Japanese maple absolutely glowing against the clear blue sky

Pink dogwood’s fall foliage glowing in autumnal warmth today

Deep maroon of oak leaf hydrangea with its flawless leaves bringing fall color to our lives on this late fall Sunday.

Cripsii hinoki cypress with its fern spray foliage- golden yellow 12 months a year, bringing contrasting color all year long.

Hybrid leucothoe shining with it’s brilliant new growth all fall long on a compact deer-proof evergreen shrub in full sun or full shade, growing to just 2-3’ tall. Spectacular!

“White Out” hydrangea still flowering end of October. This cultivar has the purest white flowers on the deepest green leaves. When they say they flower all season, they aren’t kidding

Meet “ROBERTO,” a granite Easter island man hand carved in China, bought in Baltimore, shipped to Atlanta, trucked to Trumbull, moved to Cheshire, transplanted back to Trumbull. The overseer of my yard, protector of pets gone into the ground. I’m going to install a light under his chin for night time spookiness.

What is it about Roberto? I can’t put it into words. He is even-keeled. He is reliable. I can count on him to uphold his end of the agreement. He watches out for us, and we watch out for him. Sometimes, when the sun is right, I stare at Roberto and am so glad I met him.

Fall color of azalea ‘pink and sweet,’ a deciduous azalea. The pineapple in the center is spring’s flower bud. It’s worth waiting for. This is the type of unusual plant that people in the industry plant for themselves. Subtle beauty, unusual, less flashy, uncommon and therefore more interesting. The blossoms have a sweet scent.

Colorful sweetgum leaf fluttered into one of our bird baths yesterday.

Caught little fella right before he got crushed by a truck.

He shook my hand to thank me for my kindness before I dropped him into his new home.

Backlit japanese maple with its stunning fall coloration.

Odd insect larvae slithering it’s way around last week. Gross. Gross, yet a great example of the sophistication of mother nature’s creatures we know nothing about.

Small bottlebrush buckeye about to go dormant. This plant is a woodland winner with deer proof foliage that lives in full sun or full shade.

Acer palmatum aconitifolium absolutely glowing in the full morning sun thursday.

Deeply serrated foliage of full moon maple delights.

Flawless foliage of fothergilla gardenii unmolested by the travailles of summer heat, insects and fungus. White bottlebrush foliage before leaves in April, soft green foliage on a deer-proof self-pruning shrub. Full sun brings the very best fall colors. Not often planted by people.

Sugar maples glowing in the afternoon sun during rush hour last week. Birch trees about to go leafless for the winter. This time of the year is always beautiful and at the same time sad as Mother Nature seems to go away until the chickadees start singing in March.

Even our hydrangeas hesitate going dormant, clinging to color production even as their leaves turn orange and drop off the plants onto the gravel beneath.

There is beauty all around, even in the most unlikely places, offered to us by the most unlikely organisms.

Columnar ginkgo foliage yellowing right in front of my eyes. Flawless leaves immune to insects and disease offers a unique look in your yard.

2’ tall white faced hornets nest- biggest one I’ve ever seen. Swirly patterns represent one mouthful each of chewed cellulose to construct the passive air conditioning vents, walls, and living quarters of hundreds of hornets. I no longer kill these nests, realizing that “live and let live” works. You never even know they’re there until the leaves drop in oct/November. They serve a role in our ecosystem.

Weeping hornbeam headed off to Westport this week. One of the best year-round trees you can get.

Yellowish-green fall color leads into increased visibility of arthritic, tortured, gnarly canopy with steel-silver bark perfect for landscape lighting.

Course, after you burlap a tree, you gotta water it. iPhone-12 pro captures movement in a freeze frame world.

Veronica is still flowering assuming it’s been cut back and well-fed all summer. It was cold this morning when I took this picture, and the bees were lethargic. I imagined that they were a couple of flower-climbing enthusiasts finishing a category 5 ascent… “HONEY, WE MADE IT!!!”

Dahlias still flower well into fall on 4’ bushes whose roots need to be brought inside during the winter.

Blueberry plants bring the very best colors to any landscape, especially on cloudless sunny days. Notice the leathery flawless leaves, almost immune to pathogens all season long.

Redbud leaves keep churning out new growth well into October when most other trees are defoliating in a sad prelude to November’s depressing daylight savings time.

Stunning purple berries last a long time on the beauty berry shrub. I’ve had these for a few years, and they are STUNNINGLY unique in the fall.

We were splitting wood this summer and found this pupating insect, name unknown. Look closely and you’ll observe sophistication and ingenuity on a level uncommon. How? Why? Who? How many millions of years to evolve??? I couldn’t find the answer to these questions despite emailing scientists.

This song was written by Crosby, Stills, and Nash to describe love loss but it’s message can be applied to the monarch butterfly’s pending extinction too.

When we no longer see these beautiful creatures meandering and fluttering around our summertime gardens, the selfish and unknowing will wonder why.

​A minority of others will know why.

Link to article:

​https://www.opb.org/article/2020/12/15/monarch-butterfly-denied-protection/

Also this month- just one more of dozens of assaults on the environment, tRUMP again refuses to do what he needs to do before it’s too late for yet another endangered species:

Link to this article:

​https://abcnews.go.com/US/government-refusal-protect-wolverines-sparks-lawsuit-conservation-groups/story?id=74736638&cid=clicksource_4380645_9_mobile_web_only_headlines_headlines_hed

TRUE TO FORM, and entirely predictable, tRUMP refused to agree to a ban on using murderous mile-long drift nets off California’s coast. These nets trap EVERYTHING in them, drowning all mammals, turtles, and non-target fish analogous to using dynamite in the ocean. Kill everything and pick out of the pile of dead bodies the fish you want to sell and discard all the other forms of life. THANKS, tRUMP:

Link to article (you know it’s bad when it ends up in the Connecticut post):

​https://www.ctpost.com/news/article/Trump-vetoes-Calif-fishing-bill-over-seafood-15840519.php?src=rdctppolitics

Additional article summarizes just a few tRUMPIAN assaults:

Link to article:

​https://www.wilderness.org/articles/blog/5-ways-trump-attacking-environment-his-way-out-door#

tRUMP’s full on assault on the environment continues right up until his pathetic self gets dragged out of DC in a straight jacket:

Oh, tRump isnt done destroying our environment on his pathetic skulking out the back door of the White House. He has JUST put more nail in the Spotted Owl’s coffin. GO AWAY DOTARD!!!

link to article:

​https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.opb.org/article/2021/01/13/northern-spotted-owl-critical-habitat-slashed/%3foutputType=amp

I’d say we got about 12” yesterday, blanketing everything the way snow always does despite 40-50 mph winds.

Weeping larch draping itself over a stone wall yesterday. Rusty-brown branches stand out all winter on this insect and disease deer proof conifer. Always an interesting plant 24/7/12.

Tsuga canadensis ‘Aurea nana’ I bought as a 2” graft in 1987. Ive had it at one house, then another, now this house. How many of you folks have had a tree for 33 years in three different houses? What is the value of this small specimen? Needless to say, it’s a priceless, irreplaceable tree that is just one of the amazing things to look at all year long and especially after a light fluffy snowstorm.

Two weeping Serbian spruce- Picea omorika ‘pendula’ standing proud yesterday. Strictly erect central leader with upswept branches catching the snow like frosting. On non-snow days, the silver-blue needle undersides mix with dark green topsides for a silver-green overall look. An easy to grow deer proof tree for good soil and full sun.

Ok, so weeping Katsura tree is not a conifer, but it’s winter canopy is stunning nonetheless. If the nursery building were not there, it would look even better. Lit from below with five five watt 3,000 kelvin LED low voltage bulbs makes this tree shine at night- leaves or leafless.