The week of rain and wind have blown all the trees nearly bare, but the rain was much needed, and mild weather in between allowed the garden clean up to continue. Now that so much is bare I can notice and admire details. The few leaves left on my weeping birch can be seen individually, the color and form better admired. I also have to wonder about the brain of this birch. Surely it has a brain, or why else would there hardly be any branches on the northwest side of the trunk. The tree was only about a foot tall when I planted it and I  would have thought that the branches would be more evenly distributed, but perhaps after a couple of years of feeling the those northwest winds, bitter in the winter, the tree decided it had to protect itself. It weeps to the south and east. Not what I expected.

The rose bushes are bare as well. Several have pretty hips. The attractiveness of the Rosa glauca hips which will turn nearly black were mentioned in the catlog from which I ordered this bush.

The rugosa Mount Blanc has large fat rose hips. Rugosa rose hips can be used for making a Vitamin C rich tea, or ground and cooked into a jam. A young neighbor and I once spent an afternoon stewing up a pot of rose hip jam.  Once was enough.

I thought this rose was Trigintepetala, but a perusal of an illustrated rose book this spring said it is not.  It is vigorous and has spread by runners on the rose walk. I am barely keeping it in control. 

The multiflora rose is the scourge of our fields.  The birds eat the hips and spread the bushes. Everywhere.

And look! The Fairy is still blooming. All alone.