Blog Archives

Slugs and Snails and Ferns and Flowers

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Spreading Wood Ferns

Yesterday evening Brian and I meandered slowly through our woods along what we variously call the new trail, the short trail, or the creek trail. Maybe we’ll nail down a name for it one of these days. But the trail name doesn’t matter so much. It’s the woodland path closest to the house, but we don’t walk it as frequently as some of our other trails. We walked less than 100 yards as we found much to observe and enjoy in the hour we spent.

These spreading wood ferns (Dryopteris expansa) are right beside the trail at the base of an old and decaying stump. True to their name, this fern seems happiest growing on rotting wood. People often confuse it with lady fern (Athyrium filix-femina), another common fern that grows in our woods. Continue reading →

Last Light in the Garden

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Thimbleberries, Snowberries at base of Paper Birch trunks

With long days this time of year we don’t often get in from working in the garden until 7:30 or so and then we’ll have dinner as we watch the late afternoon night move and shift on the woodland border at the back of the garden. Last night was no exception, and as soon as dinner was finished I headed back out to capture a bit of the magic.

This cluster of paper birches (Betula papyrifera) is at the edge of our woods. It’s a favorite place, and a favorite photo subject nearly year-around. Now that the thimbleberries have leafed out it’s at peak. Continue reading →

A Sparkling Morning

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Fringecup lines woodland path

I was out early this morning. Well, not so early that the sun wasn’t up, but early enough that it was still low in the sky and the dew lay undisturbed upon the garden and our woods. I embraced the cool, still air and ambled down the path from our lawn and into the woods with my camera on my shoulder. It’s a nice way to start the day, but something that has yet to become a habit. Continue reading →

As the Day Winds Down

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Black Cottonwood

This time of year I’m often out in the garden, either working or photographing, until nearly sunset. Then we’ll prepare dinner and sit at our kitchen table enjoying the view of our garden as we eat. I’ve taken to keeping one of my cameras in the house, rather than the studio, so I’ll be ready when I see nice light happening in the garden.

Last night I left the table to head out when the last rays of evening sun illuminated the branches and new foliage of this large black cottonwood (Populus trichocarpa) that stands in our woods not far from the border with our lawn. Continue reading →

Fringecup and Piggy-back Plant

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Fringecup

Fringecup (Tellima grandiflora) and Piggy-back Plant (Tolmiea menziesii) are two common woodland wildflowers that have just come into bloom at our place in the last few days. That’s Fringecup in the photo above, along with some foliage from Enchanter’s Nightshade, some May Lilies on the left, and a bit of Bugleweed in the background.

Both of these common plants are in the saxifrage family (Saxifragaceae) and people often confuse them, particularly when they’re not in flower. Now that they’re blooming it’s easy to tell them apart by their blossoms. Continue reading →

How Do You See the Sunset?

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Sunset sky

Last Saturday evening Brian and I were hanging out in our living room after dinner when we noticed that the sky was getting dramatic outside our window. The photo above is a fairly conventional sunset view, pretty representative of what we saw with our naked eyes. But that’s not the first photo I made in the course of the few minutes of celestial drama. Continue reading →

Stinky Bob

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Herb Robert

One of our common garden and woodland weeds here in the Pacific Northwest is a cute little geranium known variously as stinky Bob, herb Robert, red robin, death come quickly, storksbill, fox geranium, or Geranium robertianum. I usually call it herb Robert, but I hear a lot of people around here calling it stinky Bob because of the strong fragrance of the foliage. Whatever you call it, this is an introduced invasive thug — an unwelcome weed in my garden and woods. Continue reading →

Bird’s Eye View

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Serviceberries blooming w/ Golden Currant, Great Camas

Are there times when you wish you were a bird or a butterfly, able to fly above your garden and look down on the view?

Most of the time we go through life contentedly looking at the world from whatever height our eyes are, in my case about five feet above the ground. But the world looks different from above. The photo at the top was made from my office deck, looking down on the native shrub and perennial bed out front. Continue reading →

Red Elderberry

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Red-flowering Currant, Red Elderberry at woodland edge

Red elderberry, Sambucus racemosa, flowers are peaking in our woods and woodland border right now. This medium-sized Pacific Northwest native shrub puts on quite a show when she’s in bloom, covered in masses of somewhat pyramid-shaped clusters of small white flowers. In the photo above of the woodland border in our garden, made a couple of weeks ago on April 12, the flowers have yet to emerge among the newly unfolding leaves. The showy red flowers are red-flowering currant, Ribes sanguineum, blooming below the elderberry.

We’ve been watching our elderberries develop all month as they come into flower, and now as the flowers begin to fade. Continue reading →