Location Taken: Niagara Falls, New York
Time Taken: December 2010
Continuing from yesterday’s post, this is what was behind me when I took yesterday’s photo.
I’m not sure what type of plants these are, aside from one that makes a hedge I certainly wouldn’t try to walk through. Just look at all those prickles on the stems! It’s probably quite attractive when it has leaves, but right now, it’s a pile of sticks with pointy bits all over them.
Admittedly, they may have chosen it for durability. Anything they plant here has to withstand the ice. That’s some pretty serious ice on the top of those branches, which means some pretty serious weight where the plant normally wouldn’t have any. If it didn’t have such thick stems, these bushes would lose six inches of height each winter, and in an uneven pattern at that, since not all of the branches get the same amount of ice. That would be a landscapers nightmare, especially for a tourist spot like this.
You can definitely tell which way the falls are from this photo, though. That’s a serious case of directional freezing going on.
