A wonderful witch hazel

The witch hazel in the front is in full flower now.  It's beautiful.  My camera is "in the shop" so I'm just imprinting what it looks like to memory.The beautiful fall color of the leaves (a buttery yellow) are lovely, and now past, but what's wonderful now is the flowers --they festoon the...

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French Broad views

There's a lovely trail up along the Deer Park Trail at the Biltmore Estate.  It starts at the lagoon and goes up to the Walled Garden and the "house."We had a lovely hike there this morning, so I remembered these views from earlier in fall, on a similar hike.There were a couple of red-headed woodpeckers...

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Winter views and sculptural trees

The winter views have become amazing in the mountains.  The clear air, trees sculpturally outlined in the distance.  Wonderful.I'd posted about this tree some years ago.Happily, I'm still enjoying the view of it, along the horizon as I walk up past the visitor center and towards the bridge...

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Late fall view

 I've spent a lot of time in my study lately, proofing final book copy.  One of the joys was seeing the oak-leaf hydrangea next to the porch turn a vivid scarlet.They don't always do that.  This one has been happy in the almost total shade, and even though slow-growing, has thrived.view...

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Yard critters

A green treefrog (Hyla cinerea) jumped out of the beggar ticks (Bidens alba) that I had pulled from the front garden.A bagworm (Oiketicus abbotii) is overwintering on a beautyberry bush.Managing exuberance carefullyI allow some beggar ticks (Bidens alba) and snow squarestem (Melanthera nivea) to...

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Waterfalls and wildflowers

I'm fortunate to live in a wonderful part of the world -- our ancient mountains are rich in biodiversity of all sorts.  And we're blessed with an abundance of waterfalls, too, throughout the mountains.So I'm just thrilled to see the final copy of my gardening companion's second book, Waterfalls...

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It's been a wonderful fall

The cold and wind is pushing out the last fall leaves, but I'm reminded of what wonderful fall color that we've had in the Southeastern U.S.The maples just went on and on and on.view from Biltmore terraceI was reminded about how beautiful it's been, as I looked back through some recent photograp...

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