Autumnal Visit to Todd's Nursery

Look at the glorious color on this Coral Bark Maple.  Mine turns a glorious gold but nothing like this color as vibrant as the bark.

Speaking of bark on Coral Bark Maples, mine has become mostly gray except for the very tips of branches.  This one has coral bark all the way down to the trunk.  What up with that?

Okay, I'll admit to loving autumn. 

Mum's the word.

Colocasia esculenta 'Black Magic'  

 The huge old tree around which one of the greenhouses was built broke off in a storm a few years back and was cut off just below roof level.  The tall trunk remains as a reminder.

Exbury Azalea 'Lemon Lings' must think it's spring already. 

To Autumn by John Keats

 Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
     Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
     With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
     And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
        To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
     With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
       For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

 Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
     Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
     Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
     Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
       Spares the next swath and all is twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
     Steady thy laden head across a brook;
     Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
       Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

 Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?
     Think not of them, thou has thy music too, -
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
     And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
     Among the river sallows, borne aloft
       Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
     Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
     The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
       And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Parthenocissus quinquefolia showing off.

Ripening holly berries.  So, it's not only the retailers who are telling us that the holidays are just around the corner!

Pyracantha joins in an early advent chorus. 

Songs of spring?  Nope, just winter blooming Hellebores.  Come January, we'll be delighted to see these in full bloom in our gardens and declare it a sign of spring even though we know better.

Even as dogwood leaves change color and their fruits ripen, next spring's blooms are already in the planning stage.  Delightful.

Happy weekend all and may you enjoy the many charms of autumn!