Before it Turns White

As far as I can tell from looking at posts on Facebook, everyone else in West Michigan got snow. It hasn't showed up here yet. Maybe tonight. Actually, they've upped the snowfall total for us for tomorrow. Whatever.

But I want to show you the last of the color around my yard. I trimmed the forsythia. It needs to be done at least every other year or it turns into a monster. It's not hugely colorful, but I like the yellow and maroonish layers.

Are you wondering if that renegade marigold ever bloomed? It tried SO hard, but it didn't quite make it. I covered it diligently every night for about two weeks, but this is the best it could do. A little yellow in the bud.

I want to show you the rock garden one more time because I am loving how deep red the elecombeanum sedum got this year. Some patches of light-colored foliage are also hanging on, so it looks quite nice for mid November.

And my maple tree? After doing practically nothing about getting autumnesque for weeks and weeks, it suddenly turned orange! I decided to verify what kind of maple it is. Back when I replanted this tiny sapling, really just a two-leaf cotyledon, I didn't know enough to really choose wisely as to the species. Now, I was afraid to learn that I've carefully nurtured a Norway maple for 35 years, and that is considered alien and invasive. I know there are some Norway maples in the cemetery in addition to the sugar maples, so... yikes!

But I checked it out. It can be difficult to tell the two apart, but there are a few "tricks." I'm pretty confident that this is a sugar maple.

Finally, and this has nothing to do with color, here's an autumn olive. On its way out! I've been working on this one large specimen with my new power pruner. Just have these remaining large trunks, and I should be able to get them cut to ground level this week. I'm treating the stumps with Tordon (a salt of 2,4-D which makes it legal- this is serious stuff), and every one that I cut and treated with this last year has not come back.

I'd like to say I made real progress on this menace in my kingdom this year, but I'll have to settle for moderate success. I cut back nearly a whole row of it by hand in the back yard, and you Can't Even Tell. But I'll keep after it. I'ts immensely easier with power tools.

There are ones by the driveway and the kitchen door that we cut every single cotton-pickin' year. Omer usually does these. We used to treat the stumps with Roundup, but that only slowed the stuff down. This Tordon seems to really work.

Almost everything I worked on today seems to have something that isn't going quite right. Just need to keep after them, and they'll get sorted out.

See The Color is Yellow