Today's pic 12/19

Linda P · Post by **Linda P** » Dec 19, 2008 11:16 am

It looks like the entire USA is under some sort of nasty winter weather conditions. How about our members in Europe? How's your weather going?
It seems like a good time to look back at the year that was. Hosta plants in the midwest had a banner year.
Today I have a nasty cold, and the roads are for all intents and purposes closed with ice and snow, which is now starting to blow around. I need to see green!
Add your pics, please!
Linda P

Pieter · Post by **Pieter** » Dec 19, 2008 3:12 pm

Well, it's not just the good ol' US of A, Linda, your northern neighbours too are under a white blanket, even out here in the West Coast banana belt. We've had snow since last Sunday and it looks as if it'll be with us through at least coming Monday! This is my backyard last Sunday, after the resident canines had been busy eating snow.

viktoria · Post by **viktoria** » Dec 19, 2008 4:57 pm

My river birch after last week's ice storm (today we are just getting 8" of snow):

redcrx · Post by **redcrx** » Dec 20, 2008 10:28 am

I'm in New Jersey - the southern part. About 20 mi. SE of Phila. PA. and 40 mi. W of Atlantic City. We have had about 4 snows - all under an inch and gone quickly - "dustings". It's been under 20 degrees only once so far this season. I went out this morning and found some of my Encore Azaleas (Autumn Amethyst) still holding a few flowers.
So there still so life out there until the real cold hits in January.

Linda P · Post by **Linda P** » Dec 21, 2008 10:36 am

Ed, that is amazing! We are under a blanket of white here, with 13 below zero last night, and the high for today predicted at 4 below, wind up to 30 mph or so which makes the windchill go into numbers that I don't even want to think about.
Viktoria, my river birch looked like that last winter when we had a huge ice storm. I was so suprised that it stood back up and never lost a branch.
Pieter, you'll have a white Christmas then! Probalby not the norm for your area.
Anyone else have a pic to share, either of something green from last summer, or what the weather is doing outside your house right now?
Linda P

Pieter · Post by **Pieter** » Dec 21, 2008 11:11 am

Pieter, you'll have a white Christmas then! Probalby not the norm for your area.

It's sure is looking that way, particularly in view of the fact it's snowing again as I'm writing this, and it's supposed to continue all day and most of the night. We seem to get a White Christmas about every ten years or so. What's so unusual is that the snow's sticking around, we have had it on the ground for a week now. More often than not snow is followed by rain, not this time around.

But, you asked for pictures from earlier this year, how about this one from May 24th, Dream Queen and Dreamweaver side by side...

redcrx · Post by **redcrx** » Dec 21, 2008 9:02 pm

Thanks Linda. We had freezing rain over night so everything had small icicles on it. Tonight it's headed into the teens with wind-chill to zero. That should take care of the remaining flowers. The forecast is for mid-forties for Christmas.

Can't wait 'til Hosta time and see what this thing does:

putnamgardens · Post by **putnamgardens** » Dec 22, 2008 4:10 am

Yup.....it's so cold even the cat won't go outdoors. I'm with you....the more photos of summer we can post the better. From now on, the days are getting longer. Come on spring! Later, Love, Lisa

redcrx · Post by **redcrx** » Dec 22, 2008 9:41 am

Your lucky. I love tulips but the rabbits eat them.

Linda P · Post by **Linda P** » Dec 22, 2008 10:51 am

I'm with you on that, Lisa! I can't wait for spring.
Seems that someone has turned on the snow machine and walked away!
I was reminded yesterday of how blessed we are to have heat!
The power went off for a time, and within minutes the cold was creeping in.
With windchill factors in the -30-40 category, it didnt' take long.
The crew was fixing a break down the road, and had to knock our power out
to fix it. Unfortunately, DH was milking at the time. He didn't see the
crews down the road, so he hauled out the generator and got it hooked up
just as the power was coming back on.
Let's see some more green!!!
Linda P

redcrx · Post by **redcrx** » Dec 22, 2008 11:15 am

Linda P · Post by **Linda P** » Dec 23, 2008 9:47 am

Ed, It looks like you have a lot of space there to add hostas! I had to plant my own shade and wait for it to develop.
That orchid is lovely! Your Minuteman sport is really

! It will be interesting to see what it does next year.
Keep us posted!
More snow and wind this morning, with a lot more on the way. Keep the green pics coming!
Linda P

redcrx · Post by **redcrx** » Dec 23, 2008 1:57 pm

I have a pine and swamp maple area that we cleared two years ago. I'm still digging out the little "potatoes" of greenbrier - nasty things.
The photos are slightly misleading. The first shows an empty space that is a gravel path between areas and the back right of the photo has many sports of June but they are small. The second photo has many sports of Striptease off to the right but they are small also and the back are of the photo is a desert-like area - I need to push the sprinkler system into that area. There are no grass areas in my backyard except for a patch next to the house. It's just planting areas among the trees and some paths and sitting areas.
I've attached some photo stories that I run as screen savers on my computers. The first has some music and many different plants. The second has my Gold Standard/Striptease shots - that's my favorite. Please tell me how they play on your system.

http://camden-21.rutgers.edu/mchugh/gar ... 2008PS.wmv

[second story removed - it didn't play well]

Pieter · Post by **Pieter** » Dec 23, 2008 4:55 pm

Ed, I appreciate the time and trouble you have gone through to put these two linked presentations together, and I sincerely hope you will take what I have to say as constructive criticism, it is not my intention to rain on your parade. Again, I can tell you put a lot of effort into this, my comments are intended to help you make the presentations better.

The only one I watched part of is the Gold Standard/Striptease one, however, the constant zooming in and out are not for me and I could not finish watching it. It will be a much more watchable presentation when you use a variety of dissolves and wipes as transitions and vary the style with each and every picture, there's nothing wrong with an occasional zoom, the constant zooming however almost made me dizzy.

redcrx · Post by **redcrx** » Dec 23, 2008 6:23 pm

Thanks for the note. I don't really take it as criticism. I needed that information to know what viewers are seeing. The zooming doesn't bother my but if I see spinning pages or panning across that bothers me. Now I know to warn about the different types of motion - the way an amusement ride does. So I can make stable presentations and others. Hmm, it might be my server is slow which makes the images jumpy rather than smooth. I am watching that one and it is jumpy here. The first one is smoother but still zooms. I can fix that easily enough.

redcrx · Post by **redcrx** » Dec 23, 2008 11:46 pm

Let's see how this works with the motion out. There is music though.

[url]mms://crab.rutgers.edu/~mchugh/Hosta%20Gold%20Standard/GoldStandard&Striptease2.wmv[/url]

Same pictures but different sequence:
[url]mms://crab.rutgers.edu/~mchugh/Hosta%20Gold%20Standard/Gold%20Standard&Striptease3.wmv[/url]

Pieter · Post by **Pieter** » Dec 24, 2008 3:10 am

Ed, that's MUCH easier to watch! Well done!

I have only this year added a couple of the Striptease sports: Hanky Panky and Risky Business. I've had Gold Standard for about 4 years now and this past summer I started to see a couple of leaves that surely looked to me like I should be paying attention to sporting in this particular plant. I already have a fairly unstable Hyacinthina sport, a GS sport would be just fine by me!

redcrx · Post by **redcrx** » Dec 24, 2008 10:25 am

The hosta Hanky Panky got me really interested in hosta. It seems to have the most variation on a single plant.

I took the motion out of my first photo story (and removed the second one - it gave me a headache too - my server was too slow and that made the thing jumpy and unwatchable).

Try this:

[url]mms://crab.rutgers.edu/~mchugh/Garden/LateFall2008/LateFall2008PSnz.wmv[/url]

And for flowers of the day and I mean today. I have an unheated but attached garage and some plants spend the winter in there. I have wagons so I can bring them out on "nice" days. I brought them out this morning because it's headed for 50 today - even though the roads are icy this morning there wasn't any frost on my car.