Justin Trudeau and the Queen

Isn't it so great to have a Prime Minister who makes headlines for saying funny, witty things.  Justin Trudeau's toast to Queen Elizabeth told her he was the 12th Canadian prime minister to serve during her reign and his father, Pierre Trudeau was the fourth.  Her Twitter response was: "Thank you for making me feel so old",  It isn't every day that the news headline is a light-hearted remark. I took these pictures last Saturday - the last of the grape leaves on the vines.  These had red, orange and yellow in such intense tones.  I drove by later in the week on Thursday and everything was gone - the leaves and the colours.  It is so remarkable how quickly the colours can disappear.

Frosty Red Maples

There was a lot of frost early yesterday morning so I was able to get some Japanese Maple leaves in the grass.  They look like they are coated with sugar and could decorate a cake. Today is roast turkey, candied yams, giant balloons and American football.

Boston Ivy Days are Finishing

I have the leaf-retaining Red Maple out front.  It will be the last tree to lose its leaves and is still holding on to them. Last week I saw the last of the boston ivy.  I was fascinated by the wall at Vineland Research Station with the long leafless stems about 8 inches long.  They must have adapted to the light conditions and are able to reach out beyond the shade to catch the sun.  The more typical boston ivy habit is shown in the bottom two pictures with the brilliant golds and reds..

Lifehacker Thursday

The Cannas have finished blooming for the year, and the tubers are tucked away till next spring.  The leaves are a significant size.  That  means light in combination with the lines on the leaves make for wonderful abstracts. And I found this with the news today: There's a Top 10 website called Lifehacker.  In April, it celebrated its 10th anniversary and posted its most popular top ten lists of everything.  Take a look HERE.  With the website's success, Thursdays are known as "Lifehack Thursday".

Grimsby's Christmas in November

We had Christmas on Main Street yesterday at the Tim Horton's.  We drove by and it had been transformed into a log cabin and was covered in snow.  The story is in the St. Catharines Standard Warm Wishes . This is part of the Tim Horton 'warm wishes' holiday campaign, and our Tim's was chosen as the flagship store for the kick-off where staff participate in the 'good deeds' campaign.  They fulfill requests for good deeds - usually modest ones. The idea is to turn them around in one day - so 50 requests had been fulfilled by Monday at 5:00pm. There was snow flying from machines as the day went on, and more and more people came to play in the 'snow' and enjoy the fantasy setting.

How Many Welland Canals?

How many Welland Canals are there?  These pictures show the Port Dalhousie entrance - part of the remains of the third Welland Canal which was built in the latter 1800's.  I am familiar with the fourth Welland Canal as we lived on Scott Street at the canal and it was part of our daily lives. As one drove down Scott Street, one could see the ships tied up waiting for their turn in the locks. The fourth canal was completed in 1933. So there was a first, second, third, fourth and feeder canal.  There are some remains, like this entrance, to these canals.   "A history of the Old Welland Canals would not be complete without addressing the current legacy of the First, Second and Third Welland Canals and the Feeder Canal. You may be wondering what happened to them and how much of them are left? The answer to these questions may surprise you. Although obsolete and no longer in use the majority of the canal infrastructure was left alone." To find out the answer, go to this site: http://oldwellandcanals.wikidot.com/history

Port Dalhousie Views

This was a blustery day at Port Dalhousie.  You can see the fence line across the pier at the lighthouse:  both piers are permanently barred so that you can no longer walk to the end.   It still is a great walk, and there are always people there - walking and fishing. The views are panoramic at Port Dalhousie - the first is North to Toronto with a laker on the water in the distance.  The second image is west towards Grimsby, and the third is east across the Marina. I thought you might enjoy the last image of the floating restaurant.  It would have been busy and fun in the summer with the size of the marina.  Now everything is out of the water and shrink-wrapped for winter.

Gardens of the Surreal and Serene

The Aga Khan Museum and Garden in Toronto continues the trend towards gardens that engage in the surreal, other-worldly, serene and spiritual. It was in 1997 that the J.P. Getty Museum and Garden in Los Angeles, CA was opened. It is located on a hillside of 110 acres and the cost was $1.3 billion. The gardens are graceful spaces set within travertine walls of the Museum.  The walls  absorb and reflect light to create a backdrop of simplicity and warmth. I consider it a garden where the visitor can experience the serene, surreal and spiritual.  This is because sections of the garden are set within massive walls. They remove every day settings and objects and replace them with  uniformity and indefiniteness.  That is what can be experienced as the universal, the serene and the spiritual. In contrast, there are many social areas in the garden.  There are massive trees of bougainvillea that charm the visitor with their other-worldly size.  There's the playfulness of the scent of the sunken garden - it smells of 'skunk' (!) from the mass planting of Society Garlic.  And there are great panoramic views of Los Angeles from the balconies.  These give one a 'commanding' view  - leading to a sense of 'over-wordliness'. As one exits to the plaza below, again the walls separate one from the external world.  The silver and black plantings are intensified and magnified so that a 'surreal' garden is experienced. The Getty Centre is in perfect harmony with its location - Los Angeles seems to be the ideal place for gardens that delve into the real of the surreal and other-worldly.

Circling Circling

Where do vultures sleep?  It seems to be nearby to us.  I see them in the morning when they start to fly up after the sun is rising.  This picture shows me of them just beyond the greenhouse last week. Their habit is to join together about an hour before sunset to sleep in tall trees - particularly dead, leafless ones. A group of vultures is called a wake, committee, venue, kettle, or volt. It seems to me they migrate south as I don't see this phenomenon in the winter.  Perhaps I've been witnessing the gathering of turkey vultures as they get ready to fly south.  They are considered partial migrants in that the northern species migrate, but southern populations generally don't.  It may be that we meet up in Florida in February.

Four Geese and a Dog

Dezi made a brisk exit last week as we checked out the view across the lake.  The geese seemed to march up the hill in formation.

Serene Landscapes - Magic and Mystery in the Great Public Gardens of North America

Next Sunday I'll be speaking at the Ontario Rock and Hardy Plant Society at 1:30pm. The meeting is at the Toronto Botanical Gardens in the main hall. The topic is "Magic and Mystery in the Great Public Gardens of North America".  We visit public gardens where this theme is alive in the garden design, structures and plantings.  We range from the magician's tricks to the mysteries of the universe.  Today's garden - the Aga Khan Museum and Park falls into the latter range.  It is a spiritual and mystical garden.  For those of you living in Toronto it is an easy trip to visit and a special experience awaits you.  Here's more... The Aga Khan Museum and Park has been planted for an autumn show of colour.  I went to see what the display looked like.  There is a depth and height of the building on the landscape that is remarkable and is created with the reflecting infinity pools. I was looking for these reflecting pools to create magic with the orange and red leaves of the trees, and for the white building to contrast with the colours and magnify the intensity of colour. You can see the effects of the reflecting pool in the second picture. I didn't find the brilliance of colour that might have been - with the high winds of the last few weeks, there aren't many leaves on the trees.  With the multi-stemed trees, there will be many branches on the trees.  As they mature over time, the show will be something to see.