Trees Decorated and a New Zone #ThursdayTreeLove

In past years, I might have shown you pictures of snow covered trees.  This year, those pictures have been scarce.

Our climate is changing.  I remember back to when my son (now in his 30's) was a toddler and he would play in snow tunnels dug under the two or three feet of snow accumulated by now.  Now, we have rain.  And some temperatures close to record highs for late December. 

In November, our area was reclassed by the USDA from gardening zone 5b (minimum temperatures -15F to -10F, or -26.6 C to - 21.6 C) to 6a (minimum temperatures -10F to -5F or -23.3 C to - 20.6C)-.  Many parts of the country were similarly reclassed, with increases in minimum temperature of 3F (us) to 5F (Tampa, Florida, where I lived years ago).

A new gardening zone for a new year.

Maybe now I can try to grow camillas again.

But back to the trees.

Week before this we had flooding in low lying areas, and then the temperatures dropped below freezing.

This picture was taken in Otsiningo Park on December 20.

But there is one constant for December besides below freezing temperatures - decorated trees for the Christmas holiday.

These were taken at an annual event called Home for the Holidays that same day.

If you want to see a former mansion with decorated trees, you've come to the right place.  I didn't look to see if these were real trees - I doubt it, but if they aren't it's good, in a way, to know that living trees weren't sacrificed for a few days of beauty.  Of course, a lot of wood was used in the building of this mansion, as you can see.

Trees give us so much.

The window is beautiful, but oh those trees.

Thank you, trees, for all of this.

Joining Parul at Happiness and Food the last time in 2023 for her #ThursdayTreeLove.