To the editor:

This unusually warm late fall has caused a good deal of confusion among some of my perennials and shrubs. There is a primrose actually blooming,  a foxglove thinks it’s okay to bloom now and has sent up a spike covered with buds, flowering quince has the tight little red balls which show flowers are hiding and which we cut in in March to bring spring closer, and a Bodnant Viburnum from Dan Hinkley’s original Heronswood Nursery greeted me with a little bunch of pink, sweet scented  flowers.

Jasmine nudiflorum  is a yellow cascade on the side of the garden shed and a friend sighted iris about to bloom in Portsmouth. I certainly hope the apple trees aren’t paying any attention as we have two large orchards in our town.

And now for the bad news. In our local weekly (the Sakonnet Times) there is a long and helpful article on the winter moth, or it would have been helpful if it had appeared a month and half ago. It was then that the flightless females emerged from the ground and climbed up the trees to lay their eggs which will be dormant until the first leaves appear.

Instructions were given on attaching strips of plastic covered with a sticky substance which would trap the females on their upward journey. A friend sent me pictures of her trees so adorned and the sight, although encouraging, is really disgusting. For those of us who live in the winter moth area I suggest you save the article until next November and do as many trees as you have the time as the parasitic fly, on which our hopes were based, doesn’t seem to be working – yet.

I have a small west facing window and I try to sit there as often as I can to watch the southward progress of the setting sun from day to day. It is astonishing to see the difference from one day to the next. I look forward to the solstice, not that I am in any hurry to throw away any days of my allotment, but then I can watch the sun move slowly to the north and I can take my little dog out later in the afternoon for our afternoon run/stroll.

Sidney Tynan

Little Compton