Welcome to Friday where we join our fur-iends Rosy and her brothers from LLB in Our Backyard in a blog hop for more Nature Friday.

Today is the first day of winter in the Northern Hemisphere and the shortest day of year. While the coldest part of this season is ahead of us, I try to focus on the pawsitive side; a few moments a day of more sunlight. Yay!

For today’s post it would have made sense to showcase a beautiful Christmas tree, but alas that little detail is unfortunately missing from the Ranch. In its place there is a pitiful Charlie Brown spindly thing, but it’s just too tacky looking to be shared. Instead however, here are a few photos from the Blossom of Lights taken at Denver’s Botanical Gardens. Trust me, they are far more awe-inspiring than the silly twig on the table.

Happy First Day of Winter and enjoy the last weekend before the big howliday arrives.

Live, love, bark! 🐾

Welcome to Friday where we once again join our fur-iends Rosy and her brothers from LLB in Our Backyard for Nature Friday.

When I was in Mexico recently there were such amazing sights I came across, combining the beauty of nature and the artistic nature of man. One day in particular stuck out in my mind-a trip to Old Town. Located across from the iconic crowned Renaissance-style towered church, Our Lady of Guadalupe is a beautiful and colorful plaza where visitors can relax, people watch and listen for the church bells that are rung by the sextants every 30 and 15 minutes prior to each service. Filled with colorful banners mixing traditional Christian and Aztec motifs, there were loads of flowers and plants to provide a charming respite in a busy spot in the cobble stoned enter. Many of the plants I was familiar with, but only as house plants. Seeing them in a garden setting left me in awe.

Everywhere it seemed that Bougainvillea were in brilliant bloom throughout the landscape. In Mexico they are known as bugambilia but in my mind they are simply  spectacular. The thorny ornamental vines/bushes/trees with flower-like spring leaves near its flowers can grown up to 40 feet tall. The thorns are tipped with a black, waxy substance. In tropical areas, the popular ornamental plant remains evergreen where rainfall is plentiful all year-long, or deciduous if there is a dry season. In Colorado we only know them as potted plants that beautify our patios during the summer and brought indoors in winter as they are quite frost sensitive. They are frequently seen in natural settings in the southern states. Sometimes referred to as “paper flower,” the bracts are thin and papery. The actual flower is small and usually white; each cluster of three flowers is surrounded by three or six bracts of the bright colours typically associated with the plant. They can be pink, magenta, purple, red, orange, white, or yellow. Bougainvillea glabrais sometimes referred to as “paper flower” because the bracts are thin and papery. The fruit is a narrow five-lobed achene. The first European to describe these striking plants was Philibert Commerçon, a botanist who accompanied the French Navy admiral and explorer Louis Antoine de Bougainville during his circumnavigation voyage of earth and first published for him by Antoine Laurent de Jussieu in 1789. Introduced in Europe in the early 19th century, French and British nurseries did a thriving trade providing specimens to Australia and other faraway lands. There are over 300 varieties of Bougainvillea around the world and many hybrids.

Hope you have a terrific weekend and are able to enjoy your own special spot of nature.

Live, love, bark! 🐾

Holy cow…is it really November? Where did October go? Hopefully you survived ‘Howloween.” The weather has done a couple of up’s and down’s temperature wise this week but yesterday was nice enough to visit the botanical gardens with a friend. It was nice to catch up and see some autumn beauty.

Naturally after a few hard frosts, seeing actual blooming flowers is becoming harder and harder. The good folks at Denver Botanical Gardens know how to protect plants so visitors can enjoy them. In addition to protecting, several workers were planting bulbs for spring magic and the Dead of the Dead exhibit was in full swing with a couple new offerings I had not seen before. I just love these faces!

One of the best parts of autumn in Denver are its textures. This mum seemed aglow with beauty and texture. The light variegated ornamental cabbage is extra pretty in the golden light of autumn.

The morning sky morphed into moody clouds before the sun returned later. This statute looked particularly lovely with tawny colored ornamental grasses with a cloudy backdrop.

Don’t you just love these berries and colorful leaves? These berries will provide interest throughout winter and offer snacks for local birds.

All in all, it was a great outing with a lovely friend. We enjoyed catching up and soaked up the beauty of the late autumn garden on a beautiful day.

Best wishes for a beautiful Friday and weekend.

Live, love, bark! 🐾

Woo-hoo, we made it to the end of the week! It’s Flower Friday again, hosted by our fur-iends over at LLB in our Backyard. Not much is left blooming these days but we did manage to see a spectacular specimen when we visited West Pines earlier this week. Pyracantha is a large, broadleaf evergreen shrub sometimes known as Firethorn because of its many thorns found on the branches and at the end of the leaf clusters. With narrow, deep green leaves in summer, they become tinged with burgundy in the winter.

Clusters of single, white flowers appear in late spring on the previous year’s wood but it is the pea-sized berries that make this plant exceptionally striking during this time of year. The berries last well into winter for beautiful garden interest. It thrives best in full sun but can tolerate some shade. Pyracantha is a waterwise plant that does well in Colorado’s dry climate. You won’t want to plant this baby any where near where baseball could be played as they tend to swallow up balls with absolutely no mercy, due to its extremely dense, thorny nature (note those thorns in the bottom right corner-um, no thank you to any playing near that hedge!).

Pyracantha makes for a nice backdrop though for a certain knucklehead posing while waiting to visit West Pines patients and staff. Never mind that frou frou collar. We were trying to be festive for patients but everyone thought he was sweet like candy-corn. #costumefail Hopefully we’ll find a better costume for Saturday’s Pet Parade for the therapy dogs. Sam’s not much for dressing up as you may have surmised from his pose, which seems to be channeling,  “Seriously mom, don’t take a photo with THIS stupid collar on-the other dogs will make fun of me” look.

Wishing you a wagnificent weekend.

Live, love, bark! 🐾

My goodness, what a difference a week makes in the garden. Early this week we experienced the first snowstorm at the Ranch. Nearly 4 inches of the fluffy white stuff fell which, in and of itself, did not kill everything in the garden. But the two nights of frost at the beginning of the week pretty much made many trees dropped their leaves let alone, had flowers pretty much gave up the ghost and say,  “I’m outa here.”

Lest you think the mountain high desert otherwise known as Denver is without any autumnal beauty, you’d be mistaken. Colorado is well-known for its bright golden Aspens but there are other plants with bright foliage color more associated with Eastern US landscapes. Native to Northeast Asia, Japan and central China, right now one such plant is taking center stage. Dwarf Burning Bush is often thought of as an invasive species, especially east of the Mississippi due to more than adequate rainfall which makes for easy seed dispersal and naturalization. With Colorado’s general lack of water, invasiveness isn’t much of an issue. Eastern US State Extensions bureaus however often suggest eradication. Widely available throughout the US and it is especially popular here in the Centennial State.

Dwarf Burning Bush (which isn’t all that dwarf actually) requires moderate water, full sun, and ample room to grow. Pruning is not necessary and flowers are mostly  inconspicuous to non-existent. They are most noted for their show-stopping flame red color in autumn.

We hope this week’s entry in Rosy and her brothers’ blog hop provides you with an appreciation for all things autumnal. Have a great weekend. We hope you have warm and sunny conditions like we plan to enjoy. After teens and low twenty’s early in the week, no doubt there will be some leisure strolling through crunchy leaves in near 70’s temperatures. Whatever you do, we hope your weekend is pawsome.

Live, love, bark! 🐾