Saturday Photo: The Battle of the Invasives

 Here are three invasive plants duking it out at Montreal's Technoparc.  The tall grass is Phragmites australis, which sets up shop at the edge of waterways  as does the purple loosestrife at the bottom of the photo.  In between is golden rod, which is a native plant and which is not really considered invasive in Canada, although in Europe and Asia it is.  

Will be interesting to see if one of these species dominates the others.  I'd like to think that the goldenrod will triumph, but we'll see.

Saturday Photo: Not a Bumper Crop But Good News Anyway

 This is the sum total of my harvest this year-two small pears. It is a far cry from years when my two trees produced more than the squirrels could eat. But I'm not displeased because the trees were badly affected by fireblight last year, a nasty fungus disease that you can't get rid of and can only hope that the tree resists.

A few branches seem to be affected this year, but nothing like before, so perhaps next year the trees--now well over 40 years old--will again provide us with some succulent pears.

Saturday Photo: Not Mr. McGregor's Garden...

The rabbits at the Technoparc don't seem very concerned about the humans walking around.  This one just stayed there for quite a while, looking at us while we looked at it.

Despite Beatrice Potter and the Tale of Peter Rabbit, the beasties don't seem to like gardens in my part of the city.  Racoons, skunks and squirrels, yes.  Ditto the occasional marmot.  But I think rabbits likea more unkempted landscape, or one that has only been wrested from wildness (or re-wildness)

Elin reports that thre have been rabbit sightings in Cité Angus, which has only recently been built on an old brownscape that had got pretty overgrown.  Wonder how long they'll last...