Trees are dying while flowers flourish

There are a lot of dead and dying evergreens in the London area.

Evergreen trees are dying all around London. It is not uncommon to see entire rows of trees, both young and old, dying or dead. One theory holds that Southwestern Ontario is in the midst of a decades long drought. There may be wet spells but generally the years have been drier than in the past.

A good rain may make flowers bloom and even keep crops happy but trees need water for their roots. One good storm, or two, is not nearly enough. Trees are dying because Southwestern Ontario is in the midst of a decades long drought. Apparently the water table is dropping in many areas.

I first heard this explanation for the all the dying trees from the late Peter Geigen-Miller, a fine reporter with a deep interest in the environment. I chatted with Peter about the dying trees and managed to pique his interest. Peter called authorities he knew at the local conservation area, got answer and a story.

I googled his explanation and discovered Peter was probably right. The following is from a 2010 CTV story:

A Statistics Canada study of southern Canada's water yield – the amount of water that falls as rain, melts from snow and ice packs and flows through rivers and streams – found that it has declined 8.5 per cent since 1971.

Canada's renewable fresh water supply is shrinking, according to a new report which says the southern part of the country lost enough water to fill 1.4 million Olympic-sized swimming pools every year over the past three decades.

The CTV story is good but Peter scooped them by two years or more. Peter was one of the first to report this story in detail.

The recent rain has been good for my lilies but my evergreens are looking very thirsty. I've begun watering them.

Addendum: The drought info is accurate but I wonder if my art actually shows a tree that succumbed purely to the stress of insufficient water. Look closely. There are some weird lumps at the crown of this tree. I wonder if this everygreen was suffering from a disease.

Canada Day and the park is holiday-busy

The strolling paths beside the river are not usually this busy. It's Canada Day.

Sculpture Heaven: A Vehicle for Departure, 1986

The art gallery in London sponsored a short walk around the gallery neighbourhood Saturday. A dozen people showed up for the walk and lecture. I was surprised by the very small turnout.

The work pictured stands on the gallery grounds. It is called Sculpture Heaven: A Vehicle for Departure, 1986. It was done by Stacey Speigel who described his work as "an urban prayer wheel" reminiscent of Tibetan Buddhist practice. The entire work can be rotated. I

Inside the piece, covering the floor of sculpture, are dried autumn leaves and pieces of acetate cut into leaf shapes. These plastic leaves were decorated by children with prayers from 180 different religious texts.

A lot of this explanation stuff runs completely counter to everything I was taught when studying art: First in Detroit at the Art School of Creative Studies and later at Ryerson in Toronto where I took a class taught by Ken Carpenter, a professor from York University and a well respected art critic with ties to Clement Greenberg. Carpenter was easily one of the finest professor I encountered during my years of art study.

Some day I will blog on why such lengthy explanations giving the why of a piece of art supplied by the artist are thought by many to be suspect. But today, I will simply share a photo of the piece with you and a little background.

Cheers!

Farhi name decorates London downtown

Note the name, both on the sign and on the building: Farhi. Landlord Shmuel Farhi may be the biggest landlord in downtown. He certainly owns the greatest number of buildings. This building, the old Bell building, is one of his and it sports his usual large sign designed to attract tenants.

The Farhi name decorates many downtown structures. If Farhi has his way these signs will not fade away after 210 days as the present city bylaw stipulates. The landlord would like to see a change in the city bylaw restricting how long signs like his may stay up, and how much time must pass before they can be reinstalled. The limit now is seven months up, five months down.

One more look at an abandoned apple orchard

I don't know the exact reasons for this orchard in southwest London being abandoned but I do know that it is not an uncommon event. Growing fruit is tough. I understand it can be especially tough in Ontario where a warm early spring can encourage fruit trees to blossom only to be hit with a destructive late frost.

I believe we had more orchards when I was a boy growing up in Southwestern Ontario. I know we had far more canning operations back then. Today there isn't one cannery taking fruit this side of the Rockies. (I know this was true a couple of years ago. This info could now be out of date.)

This apple is for the birds and insect pests. No one will pick it.

It must be summer; The lilies are blooming.

At first, I thought these were tiger lilies, sometimes known as ditch lilies because they often grow wild in the ditches beside our Ontario highways.  But tiger lilies have small, dark dots and the petals do not have ruffled edges.

Still, they may be cousins to the  tiger lily. I don't know. Maybe someone will comment and clue me in. If they do, I'll add the info to this caption.

These lilies were spotted blooming along the riverside road bordering the Thames River in Springbank Park. Springbank is one of the finest parks, of its type, that I have ever encountered anywhere. Londoners seem to really appreciate the place. It is a love affair that has gone on for more than a century.

Hens and chicks can survive almost anything

One of my most popular posts featured a picture of hens and chicks in flower. If you're curious, check it out. The flowers are most certainly weird.

Hens and chicks are native to southern Europe and yet they survive the Canadian winters in London, Ontario, and are not fazed by the hot, dry, Southwest Ontario summers. These plants are resilient. Heck, mine have now even survived being brutally walked on and energetically jumped on by my granddaughter. She meant no harm and no harm apparently was done. Amazing.
I love the way these succulents cover the ground with clusters of rosettes.  The largest rosettes are the 'hens' and the smaller ones springing from them are the 'chicks.' But these birds do produce flowers which sit on the top of tall, erect stalks that can tower up to a foot over the foliage.

My hens and chicks appear to be getting ready to flower. Each time they do this, I think, "Weird.