Centennial Park in the Cold

Centennial Park on a cold gray day in winter looks deserted initially. There are no fishermen on the shore or in small boats…not women pushing strollers along the path around the lake…no groups of power walkers.

I didn’t stay very long – only enough to notice a young oak with leaves still clinging while all the other trees around were bare. There was a breeze that cause riffles in the lake so the reflections were only good where the jetty acted to smooth the water. This time of year the red railing is a welcome bit of color.

In the few minutes I was there, I did see 4 other people walking. One had a dog. They were all bundled up I their coats, gloves, hats and scarves. They were tougher than me in the cold damp of an early winter day.

Big Fall at Mt. Pleasant

This past week has been the peak for falling leaves at the Howard Country Conservancy’s Mt. Pleasant Farm. On Monday it was breezy and leaves were flying. On Wednesday, I decided it was sunny and a good day to photograph the trees that still had some leaves. Today I am posting this before I make my trek there…and anticipating that there will be fewer leaves left on the trees.

It was relatively calm and the leaves were drifting down. This maple has a thick carpet of leaves that has fallen recently

Since the carpet still had a lot of color.

The sunshine and clear sky made the color seem all the more brilliant although the foliage was thinning.

Even the gingko has started dropping its leaves.

But in almost every direction there were some trees that had already lost their leaves – like the maple in the rain garden that was so brilliantly red just last week. I always think of the brilliant leaf colors as the last hurrah of the season before everything is hunkered down for winter.

Our Oak

The oak in front of our house was planted about the time the house was built – so it is about 25 years old.  It is near the mailbox and drops leaves, acorns, and self-pruned twigs on our driveway as well as the yard. I notice it more in the fall because of the increase in debris. The wind has been blowing a lot the last few days so leaves are flying – some clearly ready to be jettisoned

And some still brilliantly green.

The tree still looks mostly green – but the foliage is less dense.

A few years ago I planted day lilies around the base of the trunk. Their green fringe looks nice through the summer and into the fall. They never get a chance to bloom because the deer eat the buds just before they open!

Over the years, the bark has become more deeply furrowed and acquired lichen. The tree is aging well. The lower branches that the county cut last spring so that fire trucks would not be damaged coming into our neighborhood in an emergency have not been missed; if anything – the tree green a bit more than usual this past summer.

It is big enough to shade the front of the house in the summer time. I’m glad it is a deciduous tree so that the front of the house gets warmed by the sun in the winter.

I picked up some acorns from the driveway. It is not a heavy year for acorns. I recall one year when it seemed like we had a carpet of acorns and my daughter collected bags of them to donate for a riparian restoration project in our area.

In an earlier year – before we moved to this house - my daughter and I collected acorns from another oak when she was in pre-school. We made a garland my gluing acorns and their hats together around a piece of gold thread. We left them in a bin for the glue to dry before we put them on the tree. When we came back the next day – little worms had come out of the acorns!

Spring Trees - 2015

Part of the joy of spring is watching the plants unfurl from winter. I particularly like the trees and shrubs because the leaves come out in all kinds of ways…in clumps…as single buds...folded…coiled…pleated. I’ve collected a number of pictures of the new leaves over the past few weeks and have put together the slideshow below. Enjoy!

Sustainability - Planting Trees

I am thinking about spring even though it is still a bit too cold to be out planting things just yet. Today I thought about trees rather than the chaos garden or the deck garden. Trees are a lot bigger and long lived too. Trees make a home more sustainable by

• Providing shade in the summer (cooling) and bright sunlight in the winter (warming)
• Soaking up rain - slowing down the runoff into nearby stream or gutters
• Providing nesting places for birds and squirrels…food for pollinators and their larvae…and sometimes food for humans too

The oak tree to the east of our house has grown tremendously in the 20 years we’ve lived here and now shades the front of the house almost completely in the summer. In the winter, the leaves are gone and we get the sun warming the front rooms during winter. We like it - and our cats seem to migrate to the patches of sunlight on winter mornings.

On the southwest side of the house a sycamore has gotten tall enough to shade the dining room and one side of master bedroom in the summer ---- and let the sunlight reach the house through its bare branches in the winter. Ideal placement!

So - in keeping with thinking about gardens and plantings - do I want another tree in the yard? I am concerned that the deer population in our area is so overwhelming that they are eating everything. How would a young tree survive? I’ve convinced myself that we’ll not add any trees in the near term. I’m grateful that the lowest branches of the trees we have are out of deer reach!  I would like to plant some fruit trees....and beging the process of dramatically reducing the grassy part of the lawn...but that is for some future year.