Nova Scotia Flora

As a life-long city dweller, I have never paid much attention to what is growing in the country, woods, forest or whatever. You get used to a certain look where you have lived all your life and don't (at least I didn't) pay much attention to things as long as they looked like what I was expecting to be there. I guess that's one of the reasons we enjoy scenery on trips so much - we don't really know what to expect - it's all new.

That's what this first year in Nova Scotia has become - a discovery of the scenery and what is constantly changing in the flora part of it. In the last several years I have seen the impressive displays of lupins in June and July and almost expect them now but I'm seeing different times of year now and other lovely sights.

Late Spring and early Summer there are amazing rhododendrons here - every one seems to have 1 or 2 in shades of fuchsia, lavender, pink, red, white. In June, there are lots of bright orange quince blossoms before the leaves come out - we have one of those at the front of our driveway. September and October there are fiery displays of burning bush turning brilliant scarlet - another thing most everyone seems to have. In July there was some sort of yellow flowering bush along the roadways - I never did find out what that was. In October, along the highway were low bushes which had turned a deep dark red - these turned out to be huckleberry.

On our trip yesterday to Yarmouth, there were vast stands of golden conifers, particularly pretty against the deep green of the pines. I finally realized that these were tamaracks which are a deciduous conifer, shedding their needles in late Fall - we had one beside the house in Ottawa for years (salvaged from a Trees for Canada outing), but Wayne always trimmed it down to a small bush so we never had the chance to appreciate its change of colour. There were also lots of accent bushes with a canopy of little red berries - actually wild white roses (which are an invasive species here and grow everywhere) with tiny red rose hips - absolutely lovely, even if they are invasive.

I'm glad to be rediscovering how beautiful nature can be.