Autumn in the Garden (with Birds)

This has been a particularly colorful autumn in the Northwest this year, due in part to a slightly cooler and wetter summer than we normally have. As a result, the Japanese maples in my garden—both tree and shrub—exploded with color:

Here is a closeup of the tree's foliage, just as it was beginning to turn:

The Japanese maples weren't the only colorful trees. I love how the Oxydendrum arboreum (Sourwood tree) displays yellow, green and even a bit of red foliage, while also hanging on to its summer flowers, even in November.

The cotoneaster that is right outside the dining room window also turned a bright and cheerful red, especially the berries, which made a robin very happy.

I love watching the robins, but my favorite garden visitor, by far, was this little female Anna's hummingbird, that perched for several minutes on a bare branch of the Japanese maple on a cold,  wet day last week.

Now the leaves are mostly gone, and the weather is getting colder. I'm turning more to inside pursuits, like knitting, and gearing up for the holiday season. I'll share some of those activities in my next post, which you can look for around the winter solstice.

March Photo of the Month (So late, so sorry): Rain on Red

I have been traveling since April 4th, so this is really, really late. March was especially characterized by rain, rain, rain, but there were also some signs of early spring. This lovely Hellebore was in full bloom in early March, and despite the rain, it was a welcome sight.

Knitting in the Garden

This is a glimpse of my most recent finished object, A Piper in the Garden, the Piper's Journey shawl, designed by Paula Emons-Fuessle. Doesn't it look beautiful next to the green leaves and pink blossoms of the hydrangea in my garden?

This particular project really seemed to have many garden-ish overtones. The yarn is madelinetosh Tosh Sport, in the colorway Heuchera. It just so happens that I love heucheras, and I have several in my garden. They are a wonderful foliage plant, and come in a range of colors, everything from green to black, with reds, oranges, browns, purples and many other colors in between. It just so happens that I have a purple heuchera in my garden, so not long after I cast on, I photographed the shawl next to/on top of that heuchera.

A pretty close match, don't you think? The color genius behind madelinetosh yarns must have had this Heuchera 'Spellbound' in mind when she created this colorway.

Once the shawl was finished, it was too big to be photographed next to the heuchera, so I moved down the walk to the garden gate and photographed it there. You can see my hanging fuchsia baskets above it, and a bit of two hardy fuchsias in the garden behind the gate.

I photographed the shawl next to the hydrangea, as you have seen above, and also here:

Finally, I draped it over the cotoneaster that grows alongside the patio. You can see the other side of the gate in the background. I think my garden and this shawl are a match made in heaven, don't you?

Photo of the Week: Bee and Bloom

203/365: Bee and Bloom, a photo by jchants on Flickr.

I caught this bumblebee enjoying a hydrangea blossom in my garden. The blossoms are a much deeper blue, but I love the way the 50 mm lens focused so well on the bee and flower, and also showed the leaves as a muted Impressionistic backdrop.

Photo of the Week: Opening

185/365: Opening, a photo by jchants on Flickr.

Amazing blossoms on the Hen and Chicks plant in a strawberry pot on my patio.