Calendar December 2015: Cotoneaster

December: Cotoneaster

The Warms of the Red in the Dark Cold Winter

(Cotoneaster horizontalis*, 
Order: Rosales, Family: Rosaceae, Genus: Cotoneaster )

The dark wet month, December, has come.  The winter solstice this year is on the 22nd of December.  In our garden there are still quite a lot of evergreen plants, but the leaves of the deciduous trees almost fell almost now.  Hydrangea's flowers turns smoky grey green from vibrant pink.

Now the cotoneaster's leaves in our garden are turning red after the berries did.  Though, the many leaves remain green this December.  Only some leaves  at the end of the branches became red.  Probably the temperature in the autumn and December has been relatively higher than usual.  Our thermometer at the window has shown rarely under 10 Celsius so far.

It was after Christmas last winter when I saw these strikingly red leaves of cotoneaster not only in our garden, more in the other front gardens and parks.

We can see this plant in cultivated areas.  Cotoneaster is non native wild plant from China.  The glossy thick tiny rounded leaves are lined tightly on each branches and a bunch of branches look like a fan.  The cotoneaster in our garden has a few berries every year, but it has often many berries.

Today I saw our cotoneaster had no berry more, but also no berry on the pyracantha as well.  They were obviously eaton up by robin, blue tit, wren and maybe sparrow.

When the red berries disappear, it's the time to put the bird feeder in our garden so that those tiny birds are not starving in the cold winter.

*I don't know how to distinguish the difference between cotoneaster horizontalis and cotoneaster atropurpureus.  Both have tiny glossy leaves and tiny berries which turn red in the autumn.  The further searching on the RHS plant finder for cotoneaster, the more confused I am becoming, because there are so many species.

Calendar November 2015: Sycamore

November: Sycamore

The Memoir of Our Friendship

(Acer pseudoplatanus, Order: Sapindales, Family: Sapindaceae, Genus: Acer )

When walking on a footpath alongside meadows and a wetland in a frosty November morning recently, I stopped at a small wooden bridge.  Leaves after leaves were falling from a tall tree  (not a sycamore, though) in the tranquil windless late autumn sunny morning.  The sound of the leaves falling was so subtle.  How are they falling without wind? Maybe the frost from the previous night made the crucial push to detach the leaves from the branches. The subtle sound told me a farewell to the autumn.

As walking further, there were 3 or 4 or more big sycamore trees at a farm.  While the footpath was covered with yellow leaves, a man (a farmer?) was busying himself with sweeping the leaves in his garden ( or his woodland?).  It was a bit of contrast between them.  

The leaves of sycamore look similar to London plane's, but sycamore actually doesn't belong to Platanus family.  Its fruits with wings show it belongs to maple family.  Sycamore, alas, is actually not a native tree, but it has been naturalised in Britain.  Nowadays we can see them often in gardens, parks, or even in woodlands.

A big sycamore tree used to stand on our previous neighbour's ground at our fence.  Next to the tree, a big ash tree used to stand on our ground.  The two trees stood next to each other like a twin.  Alas, they were cut down as being too big and too close to the both houses.  I made a relief print as a memoir of the trees and our friendship with your neighbours who were always so friendly to us from the beginning when we moved in.  But sadly they moved out to live within our town but elsewhere.  Sycamore tree makes me a little bit sentimental.

Updated Portfolio!

The last craft market before Christmas was over last Sunday.  Now, I have to gear up for the Christmas preparation.  Alongside I am trying to update the portfolio (See above this window. There are salmon pink tool bars.)  I have put part of the new pieces which I created for the solo exhibition in November in Japan.

Updated parts are:
Screen Prints: New!
and
Paper-Cut Art: UPDATED!

Please look at the difference between the original paper-cut artwork and the screen print.  They give you quite different impression.

For expample;