Something in the Air

The blue area is a frost warning

Autumn was in the air this morning.  The calendar says there is still another week of summer but it has not felt like summer for several weeks.  Moreover, there is a frost advisory tonight for the Worcester Hills (some 40 miles northwest of here).  If there’s frost about, it’s definitely no longer summer.

In our vegetable garden, the corn has been pulled and the green beans (and the bean beetles – good riddance!) are just a memory.  Zucchini that grew from a flower to a baseball bat in three days now takes a week or longer to become picking size.  Tomatoes and eggplant continue to ripen but no longer get larger.  The winter squash is ready to pick.  Only the leafy greens are happy with this weather.

The maple across the street
has turned color prematurely

Most of the trees on the property still have that voluptuous, late summer look but, here and there, the leaves have started to turn.  There’s a diseased maple across the street that has turned color prematurely.  One of our itea ‘Henry Garnet’ is getting a jump on the season, with a quarter of the plant already speckled with red and orange.  At the rear of our property an ash is also dropping yellow leaves – on schedule.

The hummingbirds have departed.  Just a week ago they were dive-bombing one another at our feeder in some senseless ‘if-I-can’t-have-it-then-neither-can-you’ ritual that must be programmed into their DNA.  Hummingbirds know when the fat lady is warming up in the wings.

Yellow ash leaves - on schedule

The hostas are turning yellow.  They’ll turn to yellow mush with that first frost, and those hostas that wish to go out with a semblance of dignity are doing their thing now.  Presumably with the expectation (valid) that Betty or I will cut them down in the next few days.

Itea 'Henry Garnet'
getting a jump on
autumn color

Just as there is a point in March or April for ‘firsts’, now is the beginning of the time for ‘lasts’.  I have re-directed the fill valves on our rain barrels; when they’re empty they’ll be put away.  I weed-whacked the community garden this morning, knowing it was for the last time this season.  I’ll take up the soaker hoses, clean them, and put them away for another year’s duty.

It’s not a melancholy time – far from it.  Apple picking has started and we’ll be headed out to get a bushel of Macouns next week.  Autumn brings its own excitement in New England.  I’m ready.

A Welcome Burst of Late Autumn Color

We’ve had a great autumn here in New England.  Rainfall was close enough to normal that trees and shrubs were not stressed, and there were no heavy storms in September or October to strip plants of their foliage.  While it’s now slightly past peak, the colors this year have been delightful.

Our oxydendrum

Our property offers a tutorial in the use of uncommon trees and shrubs that extend the season’s color.  For example, the sourwood (oxydendrum) we planted four years ago in the inner sidewalk bed has started to hit its stride, growing by about a third in size this year.  The unexpected delight, though, is the brilliant, multiple-shades-of-red to which its previously green leaves have turned in the past two weeks.  We’re not counting on the show to last past the end of the month but, for now, it’s an eye-catching display.

The left-hand side of the shrub bed.  That's the smokebush in purple at farthest
left with 'Miss Rubyspice' in front of it.

The shrub bed that lies at the front of our property has the best autumn display. The bed is comprised mainly of drought-tolerant natives, and it gets a great deal of sun and wind.  Stretching more than a hundred feet from end to end, it provides space for roughly 30 specimen shrubs.  Here’s how it looked this morning (October 23) There’s a purple smokebush (Cotinus coggygria) with purple-brown leaves that soar above the bed.  In front of it is a clethra ‘Miss Rubyspice’ with brilliant yellow leaves.  The brown theme is continued with a small Enkianthus, a slow-growing Asian native that has settled happily into the bed.  There are two Devil Ninebarks (Physocarpus opulifolius), a ‘Diablo’ with burgundy-colored foliage that will linger well into November, and a Dart’s Gold that will keep its golden leaves for another one-to-two weeks.

Fothergilla Mt. Airy; each leaf
is like a painting

Scattered among the shrubs in the bed are several that retain their leaves – and striking color - for an extended period.  One of my favorites is Fothergilla.  We have two in the shrub bed:  Blue Shadow and Mt. Airy.  Both produce a dazzling palette of autumn colors on each leaf and both are long-lasting.  Our Carolina sweetshrub (calycanthus) now shows with large, lemon-yellow leaves that will reward us with color well into November.  Our two wigelia ‘Wine and Roses’ have turned a speckled dark red and will stay that way until the weather turns bitter.  

Spirea Ogon Mellow Yellow is just
starting its long-lasting autumn turn

The two champs, though, are an itea ‘Henry Garnet’ (sometimes called a Virginia sweetspire) and a spirea ‘Ogon Mellow Yellow’.  We have two iteas on the property.  They’re a pretty green from spring through September, then begin a metamorphosis to a coppery color with specks of red, yellow and brown.  Last year, the one at the front of the property eventually went bare sometime in late December.  The second itea is in a sheltered area behind our house, and it lost its foliage only when the new leaves pushed out in late April.

‘Mellow Yellow’ puts on two shows each year.  The first is in very early April when it flowers a pale white-yellow when little else is in bloom.  Now, its profusion of small leaves have turned a specked yellow red and orange.  Those leaves will still be in place for Christmas.

Two other deciduous shrubs are still green: a viburnum ‘Catskill’ will not turn yellow until the beginning of November.   Its color will last about three weeks.  Finally, an oakleaf hydrangea (hydrangea quercifolia) will stay stubbornly green until well in November, after which its leaves will gradually become a mottled brown.

Ours was not an ‘instant’ landscape.  The shrub bed, like everything else, has evolved organically over a dozen years with lots of trial and error.  But now, in late October, it appears as a coherent whole.  Someone looking at that bed today might conclude that we put it together with the purpose of showing visitors how to have late-autumn color with a variety of leaf textures and sizes.  They’d be wrong, but I wouldn’t correct their perception.

The right-hand side of the shrub bed.  The large yellow shrub is calycanthus.

The Quest for Late Autumn Color

Today is November 23 and, while there is technically a month to go until winter begins here in New England, the truth of the matter is that autumn is just a memory. We’ve had a dusting of snow, days when the temperatures barely got above freezing, and even the shriveled brown oak leaves have fallen from the trees.

Viburnum 'Catskill' in
early November

Remarkably, though, there are still a few shrubs on our property that have defied the season and have pleasing autumn color. A few others have just succumbed to the inevitable. Among the latter, a viburnum ‘Catskill’ that held onto its bright yellow leaves until last week and a pair of fothergillas that succumbed at the same time.

Spirea Ogden 'Mellow Yellow'

The photos here, all taken this morning, tell the story of the final round contestants. In our street-side shrub bed, a spirea Ogden ‘Mellow Yellow’ is brilliantly yellow, red and gold. It has the twin distinction of being an early bloomer with a haze of white flowers in April.

Itea 'Henry Garnet' on
November 23

The champ, though, is this Itea ‘Henry Garnet’. There are two on the property; one in the afirementioned shrub bed, the other in a rock garden behind our home. The leaves are a beautiful palette of gold, red, rust and brown. If this isn’t enough to get the neighbors to dig out their invasive burning bush, nothing is.

Oak leaf hydrangea, also
November 23

The third late-autumn beauty is our oak leaf hydrangea (hydrangea quercifolia), which just began to turn at the beginning of the month. Some leaves are still green but most are now rimmed in red and yellow. The specimen in this photo is now about nine years old with a circumference of twenty feet or better. It’s a keeper.

There’s also a Carolina sweetshrub (calycanthus) on a protected side of the house that is full of yellow leaves. I won’t count it for now because of its location and the fact that its ‘mother’ out in the shrub bed, shed the last of its leaves about two weeks ago.