Long Hiatus & Willow Rust

Well, it certainly has been a while. Life happens. I've been incredibly busy with work, and didn't get to do much gardening, or garden photography.

This has been a very weird summer, with essentially no rain in June or July. It was good for the flowering plants, especially the River Beauties. No hot caps needed to get a lot of flowers.

However, it seems to have been a bit hard on at least one species of willow. The Salix longifolia usually has a few spots of rust, but this year it is essentially golden with rust, except for near the drip line, where I'm guessing it got a little more water. Turns out one of the folks coming to a conference my husband & I are organizing here actually is a specialist in Arctic willow rusts, so I spent Saturday PM collecting leaf samples for him. They are currently being pressed, and I'll hand them off to him in late September.