Birch seed scales are currently falling in the garden thanks to the feeding of siskins (grønnsisik)….
Added videos of a siskin feeding on fallen birch seed next to the entrance to the garden…this one allowed me to stand only 2m away and film:
…and above the siskins were feeding in the birch trees
…joined briefly by a Robin
…and showing the proximity to the road
I’m not sure how I missed this last summer, but one of the misteltoes (Viscum album) I “planted” about 3 years ago succeeded 
:) It’s on a Sorbus hybridus. NB! Misteltoe isn’t edible, just fun!
If spring comes with the first flowers, then it’s here already. Hazel (hassel) and the first oxlip (hagenøkleblom) are just about in flower!
As usual, mild winter weather makes Padus asiatica think it’s spring!
Back home from my visit to south western Norway and this is probably THE autumn of all autumns I will ever experience here…..high pressure weather with clear skies for 3 weeks, record number of sun-hours in any month ever and little wind to blow the leaves off the trees…the autumn colours keep going and going, so here’s an album of leaf pictures, all taken today 25th October 2016…
In my local area, a disproportionate large area of forest has been clear-felled recently, a practice we need to stop if we are to take climate change seriously as this releases much carbon dioxide. It was sickening to see just how large an area has been felled in recent years in this series of photos taken recently on a flight to Oslo. The usual excuse given is that a lot of trees have fallen in recent extreme storms and need to be “cleared” up. And what is causing these storms? A vicious circle in other words…
See my blog post about our recent field trip to discuss these problems here: http://www.edimentals.com/
Despite the cool weather, the leaf shoots (taranome) of the small tree Aralia elata (taranoki) are emerging…but I can’t reach them any more….I should cut it down so that young shoots come from the base. These shoots are a common sight in supermarkets in Japan. More in my book Around the World in 80 plants :)
Feeling tired but good having worked hard for several hours with my bow saw and axe coppicing this Hazel. A surprising amount of wood on a tree like this. It was probably 15 years ago I did this last… The green bush below the Hazel is a box (Buxus) which is probably 25 years old!
Added a few more pictures today, worked about an hour sorting the wood into different piles: firewood, tops for peas to climb into, long runner bean stakes and the rest which will be piled up in the garden for wildlife…. It always amazes me how little effort it is in my relatively cold climate to cut enough wood by hand for firewood…
Picture taken by journalist Heidi Løkken in my garden this week showing my straggling tree climbing Hablitzia together with a French dandelion cultivar “Vert de Montmagny Ameliore”. Before I really discovered perennials, this was a part of my vegetable garden I struggled with as it was so dry under the birch tree during summer. Using perennials, the same area is one of the most productive parts of the garden as it’s damp enough when the perennials are growing strongest to the end of June!
