Garden Close-ups

There are some really interesting things around the garden these days that demand a very close look.  By that I mean a really close look!  Here's a selection of garden close-ups I've captured in the past week or two.

The stamens and pistils of the day lilies are always worth a close look.

Some of our Brown-eyed Susans have suddenly burst into bloom.

But we also have a lot of False Sunflowers.  At first glance the flowers look similar, but the colour and arrangement of the stamens and pistils is quite different.

A tiny bee on a False Sunflower - I wish I knew more about identifying insects.

I like the bright mixture of colours in the Sneezeweed or Helenium flowers.

These are the tiny seeds of the Avens, which forms a bur that will dry out, fall apart, and you'll find individual tiny seeds sticking to your pants.  This is the sort of bur, with those tiny hooks on the end of each seed, that led to the invention of velcro.

This is one tiny seed of a Goatsbeard flower, which looks like a giant dandelion ball of fluff for awhile.  As individual seeds float away it reaches the point where you can pick out an individual seed to examine its parachute, about an inch and a half across.

In comparison, this is the similar tiny seed and parachute of the Valerian flower, but it's much tinier, perhaps only a 1/4 inch across.  The red circles are spots where two other seeds and their parachutes were attached.  Next time you're checking out your garden, take a close look at what you're seeing!

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Strange Critters (and a Fox)

We've seen a couple of notably unusual animals in recent weeks, so here are three of them.

This is 'Big Bruce', a statue of a Hereford outside the office of Elderslie Township.  Bruce County, west of us, is the heart of beef cattle production in Ontario, and Elderslie is the heart of beef production in Bruce County.  We pass Big Bruce on our way to see our son and daughter-in-law in the new old home near Lake Huron.

It's not just a gimmick, it's a memorial to Harvey Davis, a former local leader in the Cattlemen's Association.  Seems so suitable for an agricultural area like this.

These two on the other hand, seem totally out of place.  They live on a farm east of Arthur, a ways south of the valley, along with a number of other unusual animals.  These two were in a paddock right beside the road.

And finally here's a fox we watched for several minutes before it trotted away, just on the outskirts of Arthur, practically in backyards.

For your viewing pleasure, a rare picture of the Furry Gnome paying homage to Big Bruce.

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Skies and Crops Quizz

Lots of beautiful skies around here (most of) these days, so as I was gathering pictures of crops, I snapped some shots that were more of the skies.  Just trying to get the view that you'd get from a vehicle driving past those farm fields without slowing down and taking a close look.  Now that you've seen some of my close-up pictures, see if you can identify all these crops.  Answers at the bottom.

 Answers in order from the top:  corn, winter wheat, canola, soybeans, barley, mixed grain, spring wheat, haybales.  Hope you enjoyed the 'view from the road' of these crops.

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Crops Update #3

I've been learning a lot about crops around here as I drive around the valley and revisit about a dozen fields to see how they're growing (and see a lot of other fields too).  It's all about beautiful countryside, and it has been interesting to learn by stopping and looking more closely, and asking a few questions of farmer friends.  Sorry about all the photos; you can skim through pretty fast.  But if you want to see the comparisons of how these crops have been growing you need to return to Crops Update #2, and #1.

The corn is looking very healthy, 2-3 feet tall, and deep green.

The winter wheat is looking ready for harvest, but there has been some lodging damage from some of our heavy thunderstorms.

I think soybeans may be our most popular crop this year; I see bean fields everywhere. Most of them are looking good, but a few that got in late on wet soils are still pretty thin.

The canola, our prettiest crop, is blooming bright yellow.

And then there are those spring grains that I could not distinguish until now.  They all just looked like bright green grass.  Several of these have turned out to be barley fields like this one.  You can identify it now by the seeds and very long 'awns'.  And the fields look beautifully feathery.

Several others have turned out to be barley mixed with oats, which is called 'mixed grain' around here.  The barley are outlined against the sky here, with the separate grains of the oats in front.

These fields seem to vary a bit, because this one is dominantly oats, but there still is some barley in the mixture.

The one ripe barley field I found I've learned was probably planted in the fall, like winter wheat.  It would get a head start, go dormant over the winter, and come on strong in the spring.  Winter barley is unusual around here (though winter wheat is common), and this would explain why it's already ripe while all the other barley fields I've seen are still bright green.

 

I've found three of those unusual fields of peas and oats, a combination I've never knowingly seen before.  By now all three of these have been harvested as forage, a richer source of feed next winter than plain hay.  This is one I've talked to a couple of farmers about, since it was new to me. This was baled and wrapped in the white plastic to preserve it for the winter; it effectively 'pickles' the forage, and cattle like it better than dry forage.

Finally, today I found a single field of what must be spring wheat.  It's definitely a wheat crop, but still bright green, unlike all the golden winter wheat around.  I guess there isn't a lot of this planted around the valley.

Tomorrow, our mid-growing-season quizz to see you much you've learned!

Our Garden is More than Day Lilies!

Although day lilies are the current colourful highlight of our garden, we do have lots of other interesting flowers - too many in fact, it's a desperate struggle to keep up with it!  They're all perennials; we don't plant any annuals (except veggies), because we have too much to do coping with the perennials.

The dominant flowers at the moment, along with the day lilies, are the False Sunflowers.  They tend to spread, and we have left them to bloom, so they form big patches of bright yellow.

Trying to capture the impression of them with a narrow depth of field.

The white peonies were over fairly quickly, but the pink ones seem to last a lot longer.

The allium are still standing straight and tall.  These ones were white alliums, against the house.

We have several clematis, including this deep purple one that's out in full bloom now.

But I like this light blue bell-like one, all dangling down from the vines.

They're a few tiny pinks over in the scree garden.

A few milkweeds crept into the garden a year or two ago, and we've let them bloom for the Monarchs.

I love the deep pink colour of these tradescantia or spiderwort.

The foxtail lilies have been blooming for about three weeks.  Nearly 6 feet tall, the blooms unfold from the bottom up to the top over those three weeks.

An unusual plant, a very large bear's breeches, with sharp spines like a thistle.

And the biggest by numbers are the hostas; we have dozens and dozens.  They're all coming into bloom in these weeks, and every now and then we're allowed a brief look at the flowers before the deer come by to eat their salad!  We're digging up a few to take with us to the new house.