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September: Getting the idea of scanning and posting one "weed" a day. Sticking to what can be found without straying far from the path from my front door to the tram station. Weather fairly warm and often sunny - thwarting my expectations for autumnal gloom. Small samples (thinking of viewers with 800X600 screens, which was me just a few months ago). 5-7-5 haiku or nothing. August:This is a sunny and warm summer for the region. I revisit green shoots to record their flowers, and flowers to record their seeds. Under the stars of management some favourite patches are plundered. Other patches move into ascendance. Once more an immigrant to my territory attracts botanists from near and far. July: Richness. Summer. Pages overflow the screensize. I get to learn about what botanists consider worth visiting, in terms of transient garden escapees - but also when and how the junk meadow is mown, and how my emotional investment in the S-weeds has set me up for unpleasant surprises, like being devastated by the effects of ordinary construction work in the neighbourhood. June: Three or four weeds per page - seven for Midsummer's Eve. Even the Giant Hogweed gets to share a page. Trying to give the grasses and sedges their due. Waiting eagerly for the return of some late sleepers. Trying to catch both the coming and the waning as spring rushes into summer. May: Flowers get going in earnest. So does the season of lawn mowing and weeding, which will become an ongoing saga of discovery and loss. Two, three, or even four different S-weeds on the page each day this month. My index tables set a limit at four appearances by the same species. Many glorious blue skies in the photos. |
October: The less showy weeds start seriously getting their turn, according to my expectations: thinking they will last longer I have saved them for later. Days get shorter, sometimes I dawdle until dark before I go find the weed of the day. I expand my territory by crossing the street - there are some irresistibly weedy patches just on the other side. Rainy, especially towards the end of the month.
April: Sun and rain and sun. The first leaves of so many different things appearing, some easy to identify, others more challenging, timeconsuming, calling for guidance. My backlog of scanned samples keeps growing. In the fourth week of the month one weed a day is no longer enough to keep up with the speed of spring. This is only the beginning of an expansion. There are more spring flowers as well: I had absolutely no idea there would be wood anemones growing down at the mall. |
November: In spite of the occasional surprise finding, it is getting harder to find something new every day. I settle for the Giant Hogweed as the final touch before starting to revisit - it ends up as number 78. In the second cycle I abandon the haiku. On the other hand, I have just bought a digital camera. December: Dark. Rainy or at least cloudy. Towards the very end of the month some snow. I follow the weeds into winter decay: frost nips, rotting or dry ornamental withering. On some occasions I have a hard time finding what I have planned to find - and make that the theme of the page. I collect more photos of my territory than I put into the pages. January: Many dry stalks, some limp frostbitten exhibits. Quite a number of green leaves, possessing some winter strategy. The New Year snow is gone in less than a week. The rest of the month the weather veers between frost, rain, and wet snowfalls that don't last the next day. Late in the month I cross the ditch at the main road and find the little power package buds of coltsfoot preparing for spring. February: More dry stalks but also tiny green things. The beginning of the month continues the January weather. A wishful drift towards sun in the middle of the month. I still find a few new things, but start the third round halfway through the month. I finally get around to finding people with more botanical experience to check my identifications. February ends with snow and real winter cold. March: The spell of winter snow lasts through the beginning of the month: more winter stalks. The snow melts, bringing the tiny greenery back out to brave the oscillation between daytime sunshine and nighttime frost - mostly, but not entirely, perennials. On March 20th I am able to present the first pick of coltsfoot. |
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September
October
November
December
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August