Trees in Autumn

While I don't look forward to winter, I do love fall and the ambience that goes with it. Crisp, cool air that just feels good when you breathe it in. Crystal clear and deep blue skies. The aroma of harvested grain and of the earthy, already decaying garden.

Perhaps the best part of all is the display of color that goes with it all. We never know what we're going to get, especially after a particularly hot and dry summer. Sometimes that makes everything just brown in autumn. If that were the only deciding factor, that's surely what we would have gotten this fall. But, au contraire!

Though some trees never colored up as they normally do, there has been no shortage of spectacular color displays. The Japanese maples have been especially nice.

Acer palmatum var. dissectum 'Inaba Shidare'

Acer palmatum 'Beni kawa', a coral bark Japanese maple

Acer palmatum 'Emperor I'

Acer palmatum 'Koto no ito' a.k.a. 'Harp Strings'

Acer shirasawanum 'Autumn Moon'

Bald cypress (Taxodium distichum) with Euonymus alata in the background

Bald cypress (Taxodium distichum) detail

Summersweet (Clethra alnifolia 'Ruby Spice') shrub in front of
Arkansas Blue Star (Amsonia hubrichtii)

Kousa dogwood (Cornus kousa)

Unknown maple

Remember the Wisconsin willow that shed most of its leaves in June, due to bacterial wetwood disease? 

The one that we were sure would be dead by midsummer, but wasn't?

I'm happy to report that it still has its leaves, although they're turning yellow. It will be interesting to see if our intervention helps it survive the winter and if it lives to shade Max's Garden for another year. We've got our fingers crossed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Each year, Dave from The Home Garden sponsors The Fall Color Project. See his site for more fall color from around the blogosphere.