Wet and Aggressive Corella challenges Magpie

Wet and Aggressive Corella challenges Magpie

Sunday 27 April 2014

Sunday Selections #169

Sunday Selections was originally brought to us by Kim, of Frogpondsrock, as an ongoing meme where participants could post previously unused photos languishing in their files. 

The meme is now continued by River at Drifting through life.  The rules are so simple as to be almost non-existent.  Post some photos under the title Sunday Selections and link back to River.

Like River I usually run with a theme.  This week I am going with confusion.  Despite the fact that I am often confused this time it is not about me - but about the season.  Or seasons.

According to the calendar we are, finally, in Autumn.  Up and down the street I live in the trees are blazing with autumnal colour.  (Click on the photos to embiggen.)








However Autumn hasn't made it to my garden.  The trees are still green (except for the Crab Apple which died in our vile summer).  Some of them are obviously starting to think about changing colour, but it is a tentative thought at best.
And, even more confusingly, Spring bulbs are bursting out of the ground.  And the Anemones are flowering - nearly six months early...





So it is probably just as well that I have not yet finished my bulb planting marathon.  I may get two Springs this year - or perhaps one which lasts for six months.

103 comments:

  1. We don't do Autumn colours here in the North EC. Smile ~ the marathon bulb planting. Six months of Spring sounds nice.

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    1. Carol in Cairns: I would sadly, badly miss Autumn colours. And winter too. Lots of your area is beautiful - but the climate is not for me.

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  2. Some vibrant colors there! We're into spring, so we have color and lots of green right now.

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    1. Alex J Cavanaugh: It seems that some of my garden is into spring too. And other houses in the street are embracing Autumn. Which does my head in.

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  3. I almost mistook the first one for a flower then I remembered your seasons are opposite of ours, just lovely color

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    1. Linda Starr: The blazing leaves do look a little like blossom. And are as welcome.

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  4. HI EC These are lovely autumn colours, in fact I did think the first shot was Blossom (momentarily). Hope you are having a great weekend.

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    1. Margaret Adamson: Autumn is a joy isn't it. As is Spring. I would prefer to have them one at a time though.

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  5. Thank you for sharing such beautiful photos! I find it odd, strange, amazing, interesting, and totally funny that our seasons are opposite of each others! The trees that get blooms on them are just gorgeous right now. In fact, I posted a picture of one on my blog...and honest, I hadn't see yours yet! I hope you do continue with nice weather!! I've missed stopping by your blog, and hopefully I'll be better at it again now..... :)

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    1. BECKY: You have been busy, and are welcome anytime you stop by. I saw your blossom tree - and loved it.
      And experiences multiple seasons is usually one of the wonders of the blogosphere. I am less happy to have it here in my street and garden.

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  6. Beautiful autumn trees! It is hard for me to think of autumn right now as I am knee deep in spring. But with Blogs--we can have both year round!!!

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    1. Bookie: Knee deep in spring is a wonderful description. And yes, experiencing multiple seasons through blogs is a joy.

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  7. It must be your very cold nights that make the trees colour so well. Sad about your crab apple. While I don't remember them having much autumn colour, they are fantastic when they bloom.

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    1. Andrew: Our nights haven't been very cold yet. No minuses. We are in single digits though. The crab apple was a gentle gold in Autumn - but spectacular in Spring. The neighbour across the road used to hold morning tea parties to celebrate when it bloomed. I am mourning its loss. And will replace it.

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  8. It's still quite warm here.where I am..autumn has been kept in the back blocks for a little while longer. I wish the cooler weather would hurry up and break through, though.

    The dews are so heavy in the morning, one could wear we've had rain overnight.

    I hope you have a good week ahead, EC. :)

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    1. Lee: The weather is weird here. Cool nights at last (bliss) but some of the days are still quite hot.
      Have a wonderful week yourself. You and the furry tyrants.

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  9. You're showcasing some of my favourite colours here - russets, reds, browns and gold, and purple and green, which I love together. It seems so odd that you are entering autumn just as we're blooming in spring. Almost like you live on the other side of the world or something, and yet here you are in my living room *smiles. Beautiful photographs as ever. You have such an eye for composition you know.

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    1. All Consuming: It is an incredible, vibrant, wonderful time of year. And I like the temperatures too. And morning mists.
      And thank you. The subjects dictate how they should be captured.

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  10. I love Autumn too, albeit sadly there are few trees in my district that look as magnificent as yours. Most of our trees (and that can be said for many trees in NZ) are evergreens.

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    1. Wendy: Many (most) of our native trees are evergreens (or evergrey-greens) but there are a LOT of deciduous trees about. Which I love to see.

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  11. Beautiful trees, so colourful. And, following with the flowers, how lovely.

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  12. Wonderful pictures of your beautiful flowers. Our Japanese maple tree in the front is almost the same color, all red new leaves! I need to get a picture because it won't last. And then it returns again in the fall. I love your pretty anemones. Don't tell them they are not supposed to bloom! :-)

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    1. DJan: I hope that the anemones bloom again at a more 'seasonal' time of year - but love them anyway.

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  13. I HATE AUTO CORRECT!!!!

    You have NO idea how confusing all this is for me, and you know I STAY confused anyway. So, not only are you one day ahead of us, but you're now heading into Autumn. I thought I'd miss the changing seasons when we moved to Florida. No seasons here. Just months on the calendar, meaning nothing.

    But, I don't miss them at all. I just come here and get confused. That's as much energy as I can put into "seasons".

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    1. lotta joy: Auto Correct takes sucky to whole new heights. Or depths.
      Yup, it is Sunday and *should* be Autumn. And is in some places.
      I am confused about so many things that it does my head in (further) to be confused about the seasons as well.

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  14. We had summer to summer this year, so it makes sense that your hemisphere would be messed up as well. Such lovely anemones and colors.

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    1. Susan Kane: We had a long, hard, hot and ugly summer. I am so not ready to launch into Spring. A love the intervening seasons.

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  15. I may be jealous of your anemone colors, but not yet as all of mine have not bloomed yet, just the white and blues. The leaves are blushing, but the air is just too cold and will remain so all next week, with days of rain.

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    1. Joanne Noragon: These are the only ones out yet, though there are a few more buds. There are some red and white ones I love, and soft violets and and and...
      Days of rain? Bliss. And we might just get it because the tradies are due (again) to start repairing the drive tomorrow.

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  16. Lovely trees, I love Autumn colour but mine all are evergreen or the leaves fall off overnight no change of colours.
    I love Autumn in Orange so many different colours there.
    Merle............

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    1. Merlesworld: It is a beautiful time of the year.

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  17. "This week I am going with confusion." Confusion? I would've guessed profusion. Both are fine by me --lovely photos!

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    1. Geo: Confusion and profusion? Both have a place in my world. Big places.

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    2. A profusion of confusion. :)

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    3. River: That sounds close to the mark.

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  18. Oh, can I come stay with you for a while, summer is coming here, and you know I hate summer. Your changing leaves are gorgeous as are the anemones. The purple and white are stunning.

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    1. Karen: I do hope your summer is not as vicious as they one which has just left us. I really hope it.

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  19. Fiery explosion. Lovely!
    Up on the mountain, Autumn is in full swing - the days, and especially nights, are so frosty and chilly.
    So sorry to read that you lost a crab apple. Lovely small trees with much character as they age.
    Is your property situated in a micro climate, and less exposed? Sometimes, that can have an effect on delayed Autumn colour and cause confusion among bulbs.

    Your anemones are so pretty though. An early bonus.

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    1. Vicki: I wouldn't have thought that we are less exposed - but perhaps the prolific planting I do has had an impact. It is the first year it has shown itself though.
      And the anemones are a bonus. A beautiful bonus.

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  20. It's Spring here and the weather's confused with it too. :)

    Those pictures are gorgeous. Autumn is my favorite time of year for taking pictures outside!

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    1. mail4rosey: I love Autumn. Everything about it. Though Spring has a lot of charm too. Instead of being confused, perhaps I need to just rejoice.

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  21. I'm loving those trees and thinking I should get up into the hills here and take autumn photos very soon.
    I almost bought some anemone bulbs recently, but picked up other things first, then forgot to go back for them. I'll pick up some when I buy the wide bowls for my freesias. I'll get daffodils too and brighten up the front corner next to the driveway with them.

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    1. River: I can see that the bulb addiction is taking hold. Daffodils by the driveway will add a lovely splash of sunshine.

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    2. Oh EC, you are such an enabler! :-)

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    3. Marie: On this front - guilty as charged. And unashamed.

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  22. That's a lot of pretty color for Autumn. I seem not to remember so much color in Autumn, but I am inundated by Spring colors here and in the neighborhood and all over town.

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    1. Practical Parsimony: I think that the colours will continue to blaze, getting brighter for the next few weeks. Which I will love. Spring is another treat - and after your winter you need it.

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  23. Two springs! How lovely for you! Especially if you trade winter for one of them! We are easing into spring in my neck of the woods. It's beautiful here!

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    1. Debora: I like winter - but would happily have two of anything except Summer. Two Springs, no Summer sounds good to me. And yes, photos from your side of the world are beautiful at the moment.

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  24. Its so strange to think about seasons, as I sit here, looking forward to predicted sun this week, as spring tries to beat out winter here in Oregon, and there, your trees are turning and soon the leaves will fall and you'll be raking and shivering and the gray will go there and we here might have a warm hot summer on the brink of happening.

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    1. Strayer: No raking done here - and not much shivering either. I hope you do get a summer - and would be very happy if you kept it.

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    2. So your winter temps are not extreme, I keep forgetting.

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    3. Strayer: We are cold by Australian standards - but not by yours. And I relish our cooler weather.

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  25. Beautiful trees! It seems like forever since we saw the colorful trees here. Winter has been very hard on some of them this year. A lot of winter burn on the finer needled ones. Not sure if my tree peoneys are going to make it. But it is so nice now to go outside each day to find something new poking out of the ground.

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    1. Teresa: Your winter was hard on the garden, and our summer hard on ours.
      Here's to more moderation.
      And to exciting wanders of discovery in the garden.

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  26. Some colour would be wonderful...so far only the lawns have greened up a bit and a few bulbs and coming through the soil. At least in autumn we had the blazing leaves (and we didn't know what the winter was going to be like).

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    1. Delores: I hope that winter releases its grip on you soon. And that spring comes waltzing in...

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  27. Beautiful color, both in your neighbors' trees and in your garden. I do have possible explanations for the confusion of seasons in your yard.
    A. You spend too much time out there doing spring-like chores,
    B. Jazz has buried secret amulets in the dirt,
    C. You are at the center of a time distortion vortex.
    :)

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    1. River Fairchild: So that is what Jazz has been burying... Foolish me, I thought it was truffels. Foolish, foolish me.

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    2. Never underestimate a cat. ;)

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    3. River Fairchild: As I said, foolish, foolish me. And another foolish for good measure.

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  28. Our autumn colors barely appeared before they disappeared this very strange season.

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    1. Grannie Annie: We were so dry for so long that I expected our autumnal colour to be drab and brief. But we got rain at the last moment and glory is the result. Just not in my garden. Yet.

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  29. I will never get used to our opposing seasons, so I'm happy to hear you have joined we Northern Hemispherians in the right and true season for April… Spring. ;-) (Attempts at humor aside, that is very odd indeed!) The autumnal foliage on those trees is just glorious - scarlet and crimson will always be my favorite colors for Fall leaves, with orange a close second, so I just loved this batch! Sorry to hear about the demise of your crabapple, though. :-(

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    1. Laloofah: I enjoy our opposing seasons. It gives me the benefit of two Autumns and two Springs every year (three springs this year?) And gives me relief from the vile and oppressive summer heat. And yes, losing the crab apple is a HUGE sadness.

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  30. Autumn is my favorite time of the year so these pics of the beautiful foliage made me anxious for it to be autumn here again too. Have a while to wait! Lovely photos all the way around.

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    1. Julie Flanders: Autumn is beautiful isn't it? The weather is just about perfect by my standards and the symphony of colour makes my heart sing.

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  31. Oh those autumn colours are wonderful. Those brilliant, blazing orange, yellow, and red leaves fill one's senses with splendour. Love it all.

    I really love autumn colours and it is one of the joys I experienced after moving here to a place that actually has four distinct seasons. In Adelaide, one only got to see a sample of autumn in the hills or by going to the Mt Lofty Botanic Gardens. I had no idea what I was missing until I saw my first northern hemisphere autumn and I was spellbound.

    As for the spring flowers ... perhaps they are foreign bulbs and they think they ought to follow the northern seasons :-) And why not, eh? :-)

    We have both autumn and spring anemone varieties. The Japanese anemone is one that flowers here in September. So we'll just pretend that's what these are.

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    1. Marie: We do get four seasons here. And I love it. And each year in Autumn we drive up to one of the look outs and gaze at the panorama of colour below. We haven't done it yet this season, but soon. Very soon.
      I like your explanation for the anemone flowering. Again. Three months after they stopped.

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  32. This is what I love about blogging. Whilst here in the UK we're having a fantastic spring, you are having a glorious autumn. My two favourite seasons. Lucky me. And you! :-)

    Greetings from London.

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    1. A Cuban in London: Spring and Autumn are my favourites too. With Winter close behind. I love the elegance of tree bones against the sky. And crisp mornings. And traceries of frost. And the wonders of the blogosphere which bring them to me when they are absent from my home.

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  33. I enjoyed another Sunday Selection EC, your Autumn colors and flowers are gorgeous.

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    1. DeniseinVA: Thank you. Perhaps you would like to join us some week? It is a fun meme.

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  34. Nicely done sequence. That final flower is a finial ornamenting my memories of Sunday. Fondly,

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    1. Cloudia: Out of season or not, the anemone is beautiful. I love it.

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  35. I so envy you the autumn colours. There are none near us and it doesn't get cold enough anyway. On Saturday we were down at Baldivis for g.g.daughter's 2nd birthday and their suburbs does have deciduous trees some or which are trying so hard to change colour. Now our weather has cooled perhaps they'll make it before their leaves drop.
    Thanks for some beautiful photos. There are plants in our garden that are also confused. We had bottlebrush flowering and that usually happens nearer to Christmas.
    Love those anemones and look forward to seeing all your bulbs when in flower.

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    1. Mimsie: There are bottlebrush in flower here too. In the same yards as the autumnal colour. Ours aren't flowering but others are. Very, very confusing.
      And there will be many, many photos when spring proper finally arrives.

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  36. What a colorful, diverse blog you have!
    Here, we are edging into Spring, with still a few bursts of light snowfall (much heavier in the mountains nearby). Our trees are just now budding out and tiny blossoms are waiting to burst open. I love Spring, but I also love Fall with the changing leaves and fiery colors. Thank you.

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    1. Marylin Warner: Welcome - and thank you. I relish the colour in my world, and indulge my obsessions on my blog.

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  37. The recent storms along the central coast have turned our garden into a disaster area, torrential rain has flattened most plants and the lemon tree is dead much despair and hand wringing, Ah well another new start ahead.

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    1. Vest: If it isn't rain it is lack of it. Gardens are more resilient that we are. I grieve for your lemon tree though...

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  38. Your garden is just BEAUTIFUL. Takes my breath away every time!! And it must be that your garden has magical fairies guarding it, keeping it on a strange fairy season for strange fairy purposes ;)

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    1. Raquel Somatra: I would really, really welcome a weeding fairy into the garden. Really, really.

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  39. What beautiful autumn colours!

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  40. Your neighbourhood is lovely with its older tree growth, EC. So sorry about your crabapple - they are so dazzling in the spring. Our neighbour has a beauty and we so enjoy it in our adjoining front yards. We've had bulbs that did the same as yours and they seemed to have enough oomph to bloom again when the proper season came. Or maybe ... some of them bloomed in the wrong season and the rest of them bloomed in the right season. Hmm.

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    1. jenny_o: I hope to get to some of our olders suberbs shortly. The ones where the trees meet over the road and the symphony of colour takes my breath away. But am enjoying the Autumn splendour here too.

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  41. I LOVE the mix of yellow and deep red leaves in that tree. Enjoy all the fall sights, EC.

    xoRobyn

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    1. Wow all those wonderful colours. I have to say summer is my favourite season, then Spring. Autumn to me is just a reminder that winter is on the way.

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    2. Rawkynrobyn: Autumn is a delight. So is Spring.

      LL Cool Joe: Summer? Meh. You can have mine too. I'll swap you. You get two summers, I get two winters. We each have our own Autumn and Winter.

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  42. G'day Sue,

    Such fabulous, warm vibrant colours in your photos. It does take some getting used to that your seasons, in theory, are opposite to ours.

    The garden I'm leaving behind is high maintenance. Great exercise and yet I had little time to admire what I had accomplished. Somebody will luck out when they take over my garden.

    Thanks for the photos and embiggen is better :)

    Gary

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    1. klahanie: Oh Gary, I hear you on the high maintenance stakes. All of my garden is high maintenance. But then, so am I.
      I hope your new home nurtures you, as you have nurtured your garden.

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  43. Such beautiful foliage! Our trees in the U.S. have barely started to leaf out yet. I'm looking forward to a full spring soon.

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    1. John Wiswell: Your spring will come - and I hope that autumn reaches my garden as well as the street.

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  44. Dear Sue, I so enjoyed this sentence: "Some of them are obviously starting to think about changing colour, but it is a tentative thought at best." There speaketh someone--namely, you--who's an astute observer and enjoyer of nature. Peace.

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    1. Dee: Thank you. A compliment from a wordsmith is something I value. And yes, I am a watcher and a reveller in nature.

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  45. Maybe visiting Springtime photos up at my side of the world has spread confusion to your garden.

    Anyway, your photos are lovely.

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    1. Andrew Maclaren-Scott: I really, really don't need any more confusion in my life. But will accept (like I have a choice) anything the garden gives me.

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  46. What stunning colours, and beautiful flowers. Thanks for following the A to Z on my blog.

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