Garden Journal: The Beauty of Nature on a Misty Day!

Today was an almost mystical misty/foggy day, and even though there is not much new happening in the Laughing Dragon Garden, it was still a good day to put on a raincoat and hat and head outside to capture a bit of the "magic" that that nature offers on misty days.

Visibility today was perhaps 300 feet, if that.

The mist we get around here is a mixture of fog and the kind of very "dense" tiny droplet rain that might not look like much of anything, but it only takes a few minutes before you are soaked to the bone.

On a still day — not even the tiniest breeze stirring today — virtually everything becomes a receptacle for tiny water droplets.

Tip of a spruce branch covered with droplets, right down to the tiny webs.

These droplets settle litle tiny diamonds that sometimes become larger and fall to the ground when enough of them merge.

Photographing them and getting everything in focus is tricker than it might seem, and you constantly have to worry about stray water droplets getting on the camera lens.

Our yellow rose is still setting blooms, this late in the season.

I realize this is not exactly a "conventional" gardening post, but I felt this was worthy of sharing... at least, I made that determination after seeing some of the photos after getting back inside and drying out a bit!

Water droplets of all sizes on a rhododendron leaf.

People — not from here — often wonder why you get so wet, hiking in the woods around here. It may not be actually raining while you are out there, but every tree and bush and stalk of grass you brush against holds water.

This time of the year, the only thing that actually dries the undergrowth is several days with wind and no rain.

Water drops hanging from a twig

Water droplets offer all sorts of interesting and beautiful optical effects, if you pause and look closely enough.

If you look carefully at eash droplet above, you can see the entire surrounding scene reflected — upside down!

Smoke tree in full fall color!

Of course, it's easy to get stuck down inside looking at tiny details... so I also wanted to share a few shots of our spectacular fall colors!

The leaves tend to be particularly brilliant when they are wet, like today. But mostly, I was looking for water droplets.

Smoke tree leaf, up close.

The leaves of the smoke tree are interesting in the sense that they seem to be highly water repellent, in the sense that any water on their surface tends to bead up into little pearls, as shown above.

Even the leaves that have dropped and have been on the ground — for many days, or even weeks — retain this water repelling property.

Water beading on a fallen smoke tree leaf.

The fall leaves are very bright this year, which is somewhat unusual given that we have not had any cold or frost days... yet. Usually, it is the freezing temperatures that bring out the colors.

I am just grateful for the beauty as it is... regardless of the conditions that brought it about!

Another spruce tree tip, really showing how MUCH water it holds onto.

If you consider the photo above, it is easy to understand how there are places in the world that can be lush and green, even though they don't receive much actual rain.

We have several patches of forest nearby in the Olympic Peninsula rain shadow that get less than 10" (250mm) of rain per year... but they thrive, largely because of what we call "fog drip."

Brilliant colors of a maple tree branch.

When walking around on a day like today, you often notice the brilliance of the colors first, but when you take a closer look, you can see just how much water covers everything!

Water droplets on redwood tree tips.

The branchlet you see above is no more than perhaps 2" (5cm) long, and shows virtually all the different droplet sizes, right down to the pinpoint sized ones attached to tiny threads left behind by tiny caterpillars.

Of course, no garden post would be complete without at least a quick gander at the Laughing Dragon Garden... where I spotted this amazing pattern of tiny droplets attached to the bird netting we put over the strawberries and raspberries.

Water droplets on netting.

At this point, I started to get a little bit cold, and the mist had turned into a more substantial rain... so it was time to go back inside and be grateful for having had almost perfect timing with this little excursion.

And so, I shall leave off with another slightly ghostly image of the tree in our neighbor's garden.

Silhouette through the mist.

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All photos are my own!