These early tulips usually bloom in early April but this photo was taken mid May.
Spring begins with these grape hyacinth and tulips.
The end of May saw some rainy and humid weather, this would be the trend for the rest of the summer.
Taking advantage of some warm days, time to repot this prickly pear cactus started from seed in the early 1990's. It had been living in the same pot for the last ten years, time for a change!
Plenty of rain saw Nose Creek rise a few dozen feet above normal, almost touching the train bridge.
Pansies loved the cool wet early summer.
This native prickly pear cactus sprouted two new paddles which grew exponentially!
So much rain and cool weather saw mushrooms everywhere including this local "little library" made to look like a tiny house. A curious tiny mushroom almost the color of the stained wood popped up.
Vegetables struggled this year and did not do very well. What did do well was this wall flower, the thing kept growing and blooming until about the end of August.
This Oriental lily did quite well and bloomed nicely for a few weeks in the mid summer.
Some stats from Global News on the summer; we had 71 days of rain out of (I assume) 90 days of meteorological summer, although it wasn't constant rain like previous years it was more like some rain almost every day with some sun too. The rainfall was 23mm above normal which was really bad for gardens and farmers all over the Province with late and non producing crops but was likely great for trees in the City, see, I always find a silver lining! Tornadoes recorded at 23 which is double the average which seems crazy to me as I have never seen or heard of them in our area until this century! This stormy weather also brought us 2 times the hail and wind as well. So it was a pretty wet and cool year but it did have some sunny moments which we cherished, after all Calgary is supposed to be an arid climate and the 3rd sunniest major city in North America!
Why did I take this in portrait and not landscape? The stats show how chilly the summer was, another bad year for growing tomatoes!
In late August we took a day trip to Dinosaur provincial Park where we learned that cottonwood trees can live over 200 years and become massive. The branches seemingly split off the main trunk as if one split a carrot into 4 and they continued to grow curling downward toward the ground.
The Red Deer River carved these deep canyons as the glaciers melted in the last Ice Age 20,000 years ago. It makes the place look like somewhere very exotic and beautiful.
I also did not know that liatris grew wild in Southern Alberta, it's smaller than garden varieties but more profuse, who knew?
Just a nice scene near the river with sages and wild cherry, badlands and cottonwood.
This was the first year I ever grew zinnia, the colours are obnoxiously addictive and butterflies go crazy over them!
The backyard by the end of August or September, everything grown to it's potential as the summer wanes.
Regular rain would wash the colour out of these black petunias turning the water dish indigo!
Found this poor dead garter snake in my park and I blame too much cycling in the area. We never allowed bikes in the dog park until recently when the City seemingly went nuts and would bend over backwards for any cycling initiative. As we learned while driving to Dinosaur Provincial Park, cars kill snakes, road signs urge drivers to "Protect our Rattlesnakes" remember where we live, there is not an abundance of reptiles this far north! As cars will kill snakes on a road so will bikes on a foot path. It's my theory and I think it's a good one!
Found this enormous mushroom in September, probably about 8 inches across.
Thought we might get through fall without a bunch of snow and cold like we have had the past few years but no. The end of September brought us 27cm of snow and as in past years it warmed a little and then snowed again, this was devastating to farmers all over the Province. It is also depressing to miss the fall colours once again as this kind of cold snap really puts an end to fall colour for the 3 rd year in a row, I feel robbed!
This is about as much autumn colour as we got in the City this year.
November and December became very mild and this picture was taken after a very unusual rainfall just before Christmas, it was pouring as if we were in Vancouver. The next day was icy and foggy.
December saw a few days of hoar frost, very dramatic on this scotch pine.
Even these humble weeds take on a magical quality with the frost.
All the best in 2020
