June Blooms and a Rock Family

    June is a busy month in the garden, with the weeds trying to keep up with the flowers. At least I finally know the name of my enemy now, the dreaded pearlwort! I'll have to tackle it further in the fall, once my perennials have died down. Here are some of my June blooms, plus a couple of photos from the cheery chickadees nesting in my yard. I found a cute rock project on Pinterest, and since I love rocks and love painting, I decided to make one for my garden. I'm linking up with Tootsie Time for Fertilizer Friday. 

Campanula

Clematis

Feverfew

Fleabane

Geranium

Spirea Buds

Chickadee

Chickadee with moth

Rock Family Project

Rock Family 

Merry Christmas!

      I hope you are enjoying the Christmas season in spite of the busyness and potential stress. I finally finished my Christmas shopping today! It seems like the people in my life get more difficult to shop for as the years go by. Then there are those family members who say they don't want anything at all. I wonder, does every family have one of those? There isn't much happening outdoors flower-wise, but I do have one flower photo to share that I took in November.  We didn't torture our cat with Christmas photos this year (yet) so I'm sharing an old one. Merry Christmas!

Choisya 

Tiger

Campbell Valley Regional Park

Campbell Valley Regional park is located in Langley, BC and one of my favourite parks. I was happy to be able to visit it on a sunny summer evening recently. I took along some seeds to feed the hand-tamed chickadees, but they all seemed to be rather busy, so I took a bunch of photos instead. I'm including a photo from a couple of years ago, just so you can see the chickadee eating out of my hand.

Wildlife Garden

Pond

Little River Loop Trail

Large Native Ferns

Mmm, someone left some seeds here

Wildflower Meadow

Annand Rowlatt Farmstead and someone still lives here

Annand Rowlatt Farmstead

There's a trail for horses

Where the chickadees hang out

Photo from 2011

This Song Sparrow found some seeds too

Little River Loop Trail 

The Nature house that I have yet to find open but maybe one day...

Backyard Blooms

June is a busy month in the garden, with the weeds growing as quickly as the flowers, and the birds waking me up much too early in the morning. Here are some photos taken in my backyard in early June, with the exception of the last three photos which were from May. First of all is my Hansa Rose which I just love for its fragrance and disease tolerance. It laughs at black spot in my rainy garden. Next is a lovely pink Clematis that has snuck beneath the fence from my neighbours yard, thank you neighbours! Third is a new flower I'm growing this year, Anemone De Caen or Blue poppy. This is the first bloom and it isn't even quite open yet but I just had to take a picture.

Last of all are the tulips.  I was scratching my head this Spring, wondering why I had bought yellow tulips, which isn't at all like me. Then as the days went by, a transformation happened, and those yellow tulips started to show more and more hints of pretty pink along the edges. Not only that but each bulb produced  more than one flower, always a bonus if you ask me. What are your favourite June blooms in your garden?

Hansa

Clematis

Anemone De Caen

Gladiolas and Iris

Allium Unifolium

Columbine or Aquilegia

Daylily's first bloom

Elderberry Sambucus nigra 'Eva'

Fleabane or  Erigeron Pink Jewel

Chickadee parent below and fledgling above

Tulips Antoinette

Tulips Antoinette after the transformation

Narcissus Poeticus Recurvus

Winter Birds

There's not much happening in my January garden outdoors, so I've been taking a few photos of the birds that have been visiting my patio feeders. Most of these have been taken through my dining room window and doors and let me tell you, it is a real challenge to keep the glass clean and lint free, not to mention all the reflections. The first photo is one of my favorite birds, the black capped chickadee, always difficult to photograph because they're always on the go. They live here year round and sometimes I'm blessed to have them raise their family right in my backyard.

Next up is the most common BC bird-feeder visitor, the Junco. These birds like to eat seeds from the ground, helping to clean up the mess other birds leave behind.

Black Capped Chickadee

Junco

Pine Siskin

Sometimes I get large flocks of these little finches called Pine Siskins, and boy can they empty a feeder fast! One day I counted 30 on my patio.

Another one of my favorites are the Anna's hummingbirds that live here year round. I don't see much of them in the summer, but two little females come by regularly in the winter, about every 15 minutes or so. They don't like to share, and chase each other off whenever they both show up at the same time. One day last week I was blessed to have a male come by. I grabbed my camera real quick and took a photo even though I was several feet away from the window. It's also interesting to see how different their feathers look in the sun compared to in the shade.

Anna's Hummingbird

In the Sun

The Male Anna's Hummingbird

House Finch male

Here is a male house finch at the sunflower feeder. They sing a lovely song in the spring.

Below is a small flock of bushtits hanging from my suet feeder. Feeding upside down is no problem for these little acrobats.  The females have yellow eyes. 

Bushtits

Stellers Jay

The pretty blue Steller's Jays still come around to collect their peanuts.