Confused Shrubs!

Is it common for plants and shrubs to become confused about what season it is!!

The reason I ask is I stole a pair of Spirea Goldflames from my mums garden 2 years ago but that winter both shrubs retained all the leaves. The following summer some new shots developed but both shrubs looked quite unsightly with old, discoloured leaves remaining from the previous summer

Are the shrubs likely to syncronise with the elements this winter and shed all their leaves? They are meant to be deciduous.

Or are they the types of shrubs that look excellent, colourful and compact in your garden centre but in reality they will always grow unruly and with imperfections?

 

All plants are as confused as the weather patterns. It's not unusual for them to do strange things out of their normal season, so I wouldn't worry to much as long as they look healthy.

On another note the weather is affecting animals as well. My brother breeds and races pidgeons. In the last ten years racers have had problems with birds that don't return, all over the country. Pidgeons are also affected by changes in the magnetic field, which interferes with their 'built in' radar. An expensive loss when some of these individual birds are worth thousands of pounds!

 

One of my dad's allotment neighbours is a pigeoneer, and he told us about one of his best pigeons stopping in Denmark. A pigeon keeper over their contacted him after taking the serial number of the ring, but my dad's neighbour (the pigeon owner) decided he couldn't afford to go over to collect it. I asked how much this pigeon was worth, and he said, "about six grand". I didn't say anything, but I was thinking it doesn't cost that much to fly to Denmark to collect a bird (not that I've ever collected any bird from Denmark, although I did have my eye on a nice Danish blonde that used to work with us).

 

Some people Clueless have got money to burn!