I’m not sure if it’s midlife, or the fact that I’ve moved back to natural landscapes of my childhood, but I notice trees and plants far more than I used to. Each month here on Home Again I share a photo roundup of what’s growing around my home, neighborhood, and city - plus whatever I learn about it in my random midlife plant-Googling. Glad you’re here!
My cache of nature photos is rather small this month, I’m afraid! Maybe it’s because the mornings are too dark for long walks as we approach the time change in early November. Maybe it’s because I had back-to-back weird weeks1 this month where I wasn’t in my regular noticing practice. Or maybe it’s because this time of year is less of a what’s-growing and more of a what’s-withering situation, the withering being an important part of the process but in many ways less photogenic.
Here are a few of the flora I did capture this month…
On a drive up to Monterey in September I drove past Summerset Farm in Santa Ynez and knew immediately I’d drag the family back for pumpkin patching later in the season.
I’ve never loved a corn maze, especially living in climates where the whole thing felt very make-believe and inauthentic. But I was perfectly charmed at the sunflower maze at Summerset Farms.
With a little Googling I learned that:
Young sunflowers orient themselves in the direction of the sun. At dawn, the head of the flower faces east and moves west throughout the day. When sunflowers reach full maturity, they no longer follow the sun and continuously face east.
Fun!
Also at Summerset Farm I came upon some olive trees bearing - and this should not be surprising but it WAS - olives. See, olive trees are used a lot in landscaping where I live, but there are never any olives. Until I saw this tree - which looks the same in every other way as the ones I’m used to - I never stopped to wonder why this is.
The answer is simple, and that is that several varieties of olive trees have been bred to be fruitless to avoid the mess of fallen fruit, while enjoying the other benefits of a tree that does really well in this area and looks pretty.
Since I can’t stand olives, I’m on board!
I spent a lot of time trying to identify this succulent beauty I pass in a nearby front yard on my morning walks. I believe it’s a Euphorbia of some kind, but that’s as far as I got.
I love the repeating pattern on the green part, and the cheerful cranberry-colored edges. So sweet!
There’s no debating that by far the nature-photo-op of the month was far from my home in California, in Whistler Village, British Columbia. Behold:
More in the What’s Growing series:
‘Weird,’ in the best way! I had a dear friend come stay, and then I traveled to Vancouver BC for my 20th wedding anniversary!
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