Fleeting Glory
Whilst scratching around for November Bloomers last week, the camera couldn’t resist turning toward the autumn colour, which has almost reached its peak.
 Cornus kousa ‘Satomi’
 This one caught just in time, it’s now virtually leafless thanks to the frost.
 Not just me who appreciates it..
Flowering Cherry (inherited, variety unknown)
 I love trees and shrubs that display a rainbow of colours as they fade.
 Acer (variety unknown)
 This one is a bit of a cheat because we took the photograph at Antony, a couple of weeks ago.
Acer palmatum ‘Osakazuki’
Those on home turf are none too shabby though..
Acer leaves falling into a clump of Cyclamen hederifolium
Acer palmatum (inherited, variety unknown)
 Acer palmatum ‘Senkaki’, Coral bark maple
It’s a bit spindly at the moment, but my latest acquisition nevertheless shows promise.
 A long view down the lawn
The native beech are now turning too.
 Raindrops clinging to a seed head
Still plenty of rose hips
Ophiopogon nigrescens
The pearlescent berries of the black grass
 Callicarpa bodinieri ‘Profusion’
It’s still getting the hang of ‘profusion’. Maybe next year.
 Berberis
 Enkianthus campanulatus
 Davidia involucrata
 Ending the tour where we started, with the handkerchief tree.
 Given the arctic blast forecast for the next few days I’m thinking the garden will look different again by next week. Keep warm.
What stunning photgraphs! Thank you for sharing.
Thanks Freda. Cold up there.. take care.
I love fall colour … but alas ours is all gone now … beautiful photos
That’s the trouble, oh so fleeting, maybe that’s why we value it so much.
Gorgeous colours 🙂
I need to get more! Thanks Jenny.
What a beautiful autumnal post before we get onto the snowy ones! I love the view down the lawn. The trees surrounding you are just beautiful, especially now. Julie x
It’s quite difficult to capture the panorama on camera. There is a magnificent mature beech down by the river that looks fantastic but, try as we might, it just didn’t work as a photo. Need more practice!
Love the one with the raindrops.
I think it’s on a weed.. but finding its own beauty!
Just gorgeous Jess – please come and sort out our garden so it looks like yours!
Thanks Em. The glimpses that we’ve had of your garden this year suggest that it is already lovely. More please!
They really are beautiful photos Jessica. I too love the one with raindrops. Sadly our leaves are falling rapidly now. Autumn seemed short-lived. x
Thanks Simone. It always seems short lived to me. Especially as I hate what replaces it. But the snowdrops are already coming up. Hold on in there!
Such gorgeous colour. I love the acer in your fifth photo, absolutely stunning. We had strong winds on Friday which has almost done for my lilac, just a few leaves now hanging on, and I’m sure they’ll be gone as soon as the cold spell hits.
The combination of the cold and the wind will finish off everything down here too I think. At least we had plenty of warning. The tender things that need protection are already in the greenhouse.
So many beautiful autumn colours! xx
Thanks Amy. It’s pretty while it lasts!
Jessica….these pictures are so good!
Love the berries…especially the “Black Grass”…never heard of that one!
Your property looks glorious..love the “woodsy” feel♥
And…your fall blooms….SPECTACULAR!
Love the climate you have….always green…and something blooming!
You must decorate with all those lovely berries….can’t wait to see that!
Enjoy your week ahead♥
Cheers!
Linda :o)
We are in the middle of a wood, so it is indeed ‘woodsy’!
Now, I prefer your climate. Proper cold and proper summer. Much of the time our weather is uniformly… grey!
Thanks Linda.
Those bright purple berries are amazing and I think you have more autumn colour with you- ours are all looking a bit muted in Hampshire. Lack of frosts I’m thinking. I’ve just been outside to “water the puppy” and it’s getting chilly here already. Brrrrr 🙂
It took a while to develop, and then all of a sudden it’s over.
Isn’t the puppy a bit young for a bath?
Oh Jessica, these photos are beautiful – the acers are outstanding of course but there is beauty in all of them and you have captured them so well. My callicarpa (new this year) is equally non-prolific, but at least like yours it has some berries – hurrah!
Thanks Cathy.
The Callicarpa berries are tiny too… showstopper not.
What a fantastic { and colourful } time of year Autumn is Jessica …. your red Acer is magnificent as is everything in your garden….. the colour of your Callicarpa is fantastic ….. wait until it comes into it’s own !! WOW. I drove to the garden centre today { it has a wonderful ice rink at Christmas } and the trees that I pass on the way are just coming into their own ….. very late this year. My white fushcia is the best it’s been all year but, I fear that it will perish tomorrow when the cold weather comes. XXXX
Everything has been late this year, catching up after the cold Spring perhaps.
And now it does sound as though it will be quite cold. I hope your fuchsia survives.
I love autumn colours, they are my favourites for quilt making. The colours of the acers are stunning …… I will have to raid my stash for fabrics in those colours for an autumn quilt.
That would make a glorious quilt Anne!
What a fantastic selection of colours and berries, super photos. The colours here seem to be getting better and better each day, hope they survive the promised cold spell. Your Acers are wonderful and such reliable trees for autumn colour, my Osakazuki hasn’t reached its brightest red yet, hopefully in a few more days.
The Osakazuki was originally in a pot and now in the ground has grown into a peculiar shape, flat headed. I am hoping that having being thus restricted it won’t grow too tall for its spot, but I think I need to prune it to get it into a more regular shape.
Mine is flat topped too, it lost its leader and I’m hoping that another branch will decide that it wants to grow vertically. Each year it gets wider and wider but no taller unfortunately!
I noticed that, and began to wonder if it was a trait of the variety. The one I pictured doesn’t need to get too big but it’s a worry, because I have a second tree that last year lost its leader to frost.. and that one I do need to be tall!
It really is a good year for autumn colour isn’t it? Wow, some stunning pics here. I especially loved the raindrops on the seed heads and those purple berries. xxx
Thanks snowbird. It’s been a good year, but all too brief!
Beautiful colours though personally I’d forego the Callicarpa – too bright for my taste. My youngest daughter has inherited one in her North London garden which is prolific. When are you opening your garden to the public?
No time soon! 🙂
The wonderful thing about photography is that you can crop out the weeds. Mostly. Some snuck through..
Jessica you have/had some beautiful tree colour, beautiful photos too and leafmold later,
keep warm too, we have had sleety snow today, unusual for the islands so the mainland Scotland must be cold! Frances
We have sleet and hail forecast for tomorrow here too. No gardening then!
Wow! Fantastic range of gorgeous Autumn colours here. I loved that you managed to catch a ladybird in there too 🙂 I’m quite fascinated by Ophiopogon nigrescens now, having never seen anything like it before. Think I might look into getting some myself! Where is it native to?
East Asia, China and Japan apparently. I love it as a contrasting edging plant, it bulks up well too so you can spread it around. It’s quite widely available now.
I love the ladybird too!
What beautiful pictures. The acers are stunning, and cherries and beech are some of my favourites. I walked down a fantastic beech avenue on Sunday afternoon. Well, I got partway down it then someone needed the toilet. Sigh. I’m thrilled to see those purple berries. There are some at Slimbridge, and I always go and look at them and wonder what they are. So now I know. They are so unusual and look almost artificial. I wonder if birds eat them at all.
There are so few on my plant, and so tiny, the birds wouldn’t find them a particularly satisfying meal. Hopefully I can let you know next year! Thanks CJ.
I love the shot of the acer leaves on the cyclamen. That would make a lovely print or note cards.
All the foliage is down here, except a few stragglers. The oak leaf hydrangea is still a bit of color and an azalea of unknown variety that came with the house a nice golden hue, but that’s all. I have just my grasses, epimediums and hellebores left to enjoy. You have a good deal of color and variety of it in your garden this fall.
Any thoughts on what you might add?
A few more Acers. I’d like to have a good clump of them with contrasting leaf colours. But more natives too. The brightest of the beeches in the lawn shot is a copper variety. Love the colour of that. The green leaved ones bordering the lawn are coming out, I will replace them further back.
The autumn leaves look beautiful. I love the berries, too and the little ladybird in the sun! Our local beech trees are looking stunning in the sunshine but this week already feels more like winter than autumn. Keep warm too – hopefully the arctic blast will be short lived.
I’ve spent so much time relocating ladybirds this autumn, where are they all coming from? And why do they choose to hibernate in the foliage I’m cutting down?!
Glorious bursts of colour but it’s the photo of seed head & raindrops I love the most.
Yes, I like that one. A case of being in the right place at the right time!
Beautiful photos Jessica, what a great array of trees and shrubs you have, that long view across the grass really helped put your garden in context for me. *happy sigh* though I am betting it all looks a little more bare now if the wind is anything like as strong as it is here.
I am hoping to show a bit more of what I’ve done on the steep bank soon, if only the weather would allow me a few more decent days to finish it off! Today turned out relatively nice, despite a lousy forecast, I think the wind and rain now gets to us tomorrow. Oh joy.
The autumn leaves always remind me of lanterns – little beacons of light to brighten up the day at grey, gloomy times.
Love your photos.
Today is glorious, and I must haste to catch photos of the last few leaves in my garden which I have neglected to do this year.
Thanks Rosemary. They certainly do brighten the day and much needed they are too. I hope you managed to catch those last leaves, not liking the look of tomorrow’s forecast.
Reds sadly lacking this year around here – apart from hips, we have a bumper crop of hips – strange how different the autumn tapestry feels without the red shades.
Our first autumn here I was really disappointed with the lack of colour, given that we are surrounded by deciduous woodland. It was that that drove me to start collecting acers and other trees and shrubs with red autumn leaves. It certainly does make a difference, even though the trees are still tiny.
Lovely colours, especially the acers. The leaves are just about disappearing here, though next-door’s mulberry is still completely covered in un-autumnal leaves.
The storms have done the damage this year, and the frost. I reckon by the end of the week, with high winds again tomorrow, they will all be gone.
It is a wonderful time of year for colour isn’t it, driving down our lanes here in Berkshire and then along our drive is absolutely magnificent, and our view of the hill opposite ours in Wales is amazing.
I love it when the sun shines and illuminates it all.
As usual your photographs are very special 🙂
We were out and about today and yes, the lanes are absolutely beautiful. And the wonderful long vistas that you get from the top of hills. Thanks Sue.
Beautiful foliage and berries Jessica and probably captured just in time before they disappear into the distance. Always amazes me how the state of leafiness can change in but a few days.
So true. I’ve been watching the golden leaved acer which I can see from my study. It reached its peak at about the time I photographed it and perhaps three days later half of the leaves were gone.
Beautiful photos! I love the light on the leaves in the first one. We awoke to some snow this morning – it seemed so bizarre as down the street the snowfall was covering the bright colours of the falling leaves:)
That first photo is my favourite. Maybe joint favourite with the ladybird..
Snow! There was snow on Dartmoor today, but that is quite high ground. It does seem bizarre because we’ve got used to snow coming much later in recent years. And yet as a kid I remember playing in snow well before Christmas.
You captured the autumn colours wonderfully well. Autumn is a very short season here in SW France, just a week or two really, one minute it being late summer and the minute early winter with hardly a pause for the joyful colours of autumn. But we have only just started moving into this changeover time, so the lack of the gloriousness of an English autumn is made up for by the long, long, summer.
Thanks Vera. I think I could get used to the long, long summer. As I get older I crave warmth. I hope you get your Rayburn set up before winter arrives!
Wow your garden looks amazing in it’s autumn colours. It must be a feast to the eyes looking out of the window to such a view.
Sarah x
Thanks Sarah. It’s been a long time coming but the colours are very good this year. Just seen your post on beech woods too, glorious!
Lovely photos and gorgeous colors. Thanks for the tour. Blessings, Natalie 🙂
Thanks Natalie.
Never let anyone describe a November garden as boring!
It certainly manages to cut through the grey!
Those acers are fabulous. I’d love to plant one in our front garden; must add it to the list…
They are especially wonderful at this time of year with the autumn colour, but the trees are a lovely shape all through the summer too. Excellent specimen tree for the front garden!
Oh if only I had room for a Cornus Kousa – a girl can dream! The view down your lawn is absolutely gorgeous 🙂
It’s my favourite tree Rosie. This one has been through a bit because I dug it up from a previous garden and it suffered in a pot for three years whilst we were looking for our next house. It has really taken off though since I replanted it here.
i keep taking notes on your garden as if I could actually grow these things in my gardening zone!! great fall color….totally jealous! (my garden in very brown right now.)
It’ll all be back come Spring and I’ll be the jealous one!
All very pretty, I love the colours of autumn.
It seems to have been a good year. Late, but the colour has taken time to develop.
I love that Acer osakazuki, it’s just the best Autumn colour. My Callicarpa ‘Profusion’ has the same problem. It’s not very profuse. Do you think whoever named it was being ironical?
Chloris
Hi Chloris and welcome to rusty duck.
You may have a point! Mine is but young, I am still hoping next year will be different. Time will tell..
These photos are so beautiful!! Love those purple berry things. Not a leaf left here, and snowstorm coming tomorrow. I am re-living fall through your photos!
Snow! Already! But looking forward to the pictures on your blog!