Tuesday, July 8, 2014

Flora and fauna

Yesterday Slater came out and took down four red oaks that have been afflicted with oak wilt. Three were near the entrance to the drive and the other was down along the side yard. The branches and little bits were all fed into the chipper, but they piled up the larger pieces, which we will donate to a friend who heats with wood. Here are two woodpiles and a picture of a stump.




We had a bit of a storm last night and one of the poplars out front decided to snap off about eight feet from the ground, as is their wont. I had intended to get a photo of that,  too, but Tom was too efficient and got rid of it before I had a chance.

Here are pictures of some of the things blooming at the moment.


This is Liatris, also known as Gayfeather.





The yellow daylily is a Stella de Oro. My mother gave us some from her garden a few years ago.
The two pictures below are of daylilies Tom got from his old family place up the road. 
They grow wild around here and some people call them ditch lilies.
The bottom picture is of Asian lilies.

This morning when I went outside, this enormous moth was by the front door. I think it is a Hawk Moth or a Sphinx. At any rate, it is as big as a hummingbird. I measured the length of the body (1 3/4 inches) and the wings at rest (3 inches). Some people call them Hummingbird Moths,although I think those are a different species.



3 comments:

Ur-spo said...

oak wilt? this sounds terrible.

Moving with Mitchell said...

We had Gayfeather in our Connecticut garden. We bought it just for the name. It was beautiful but never as beautiful as yours (the woodchucks liked it too much).

We also bought Potentilla Katherine Dykes -- just because of the name. It did beautifully and the woodchucks tended to leave it alone.

Michael Dodd said...

We may have bought the Gayfeather because of the name, or it may have been a gift from a neighbor who often passes along plants. And if so, she may have done so because of the name, too.
Tom mentioned that the Gayfeather is exceptionally tall this year, perhaps because we have had a rather wet spring and early summer.