Design

It's been a great fall color season, and the ginkgos are currently at their peak. Ginkgos are ancient conifers with a delightful habit of turning butter yellow in fall, just before all the leaves (in clusters on short shoots) drop, practically in unison. I remember a great photo/memory image from years ago of our dog romping with my gardening companion in the ginkgo leaves in front of our (first) house in Georgia. Ginkgos at the South Carolina Botanical Garden We've had ginkgos ever since. These two are at the garden where I work.  Fabulous!

We usually think about fall color in leaves; in Eastern North America, we have an abundance of deciduous trees that illuminate our landscapes with colors varying from yellow to red. But on a 'fall color walk' today, I pointed out many more 'fall colors' -- those of flowers and fruits, especially, but also of foliage of annuals and perennials that we don't normally think about as 'fall color.' It was interesting -- fall color (in terms of leaves) is just now coming on.

Fall color in the North Carolina mountains is becoming apparent.  At mid-elevations along the Blue Ridge Parkway, the color is spectacular.  Higher up, it's still early; lower down, drought stress may diminish the usual clear yellows, defaulting to brown. Hemlocks are gray ghosts, felled by woolly adelgids But yesterday, it was spectacular north of Devil's Courthouse and Graveyard Fields.

I posted about this view a few days ago, but I can't help doing so again. The view from the kitchen caught my attention, looking towards the bedroom window. The ginkgo under the powerline is glorious today. Totally luminous in the late afternoon light. This view is through the bedroom window (the details are blown out because of the slow camera exposure). The view from the outside door tells the story.

Visiting interesting gardens, reading great gardening books (the thoughtful ones), and learning first-hand digging and planting, and moving plants - that's what makes gardening fun. It's a lifelong journey, whether we're passionate about organic gardening, native plants, and wildlife gardening (like me) or have enthusiasms for specialty plants and collectible plants. There's inspiration everywhere, if you look for it. I find natural landscapes a continuing source, of course, but that's what inspires me to plant and garden. Bumbling across wonderful garden vignettes, created by talented gardeners, is also inspiring. I love the way my colleague's Kathy's new pathway planting looks this fall in the morning light. Wonderful. The Hosta Garden was lovely with the fall color highlighted by the morning light.

My gardening companion planted a large native witch hazel ( Hamamelis virginiana) to the left of the meadow in front of the garage some years ago (we've been reducing the meadow's size). It's flourished in the conditions there, and is really now more of a small tree than a shrub. This afternoon, it glowed clear yellow, with the backdrop of our neighbor's beautiful old Southern red oak. And the view from my study window was striking, too, with the vibrant yellow of the hickory peaking through. After a rainy Saturday, it was nice to have a sunny fall day!

Fall color, red berries, and seasonal change were the themes of a fall color walk last week. Family groups, surprisingly, made up most of the audience. I was totally delighted to see this photo , from photographer Jessica Nelms from upstate.today (Seneca Journal/Daily Messenger) on the front page of the print version of Friday's local paper last week.

The signs of fall are everywhere. The yellows, reds, and browns have appeared, at least in their beginning stages. In the mountains, it's ahead, but in the piedmont, it's not far behind. These are photos from the mountains, though, into the ravine behind our small house there.

I remembered the fall leaves I'd pressed in an old phone book as I was trying to reduce a clutter stack in my study. What a nice surprise! My glycerin-preserved leaves are lovely, too, but these leaves, pressed for creating framed leaf pictures (I think), are delightfully fragile, with fall color still fresh. I thought I'd spread some out in the old berry box on the breakfast table (replacing some very crispy old leaves). A nice bridge from fall to spring.

I guess you can always make the case that a camera gets in the way of experiencing what you see. I used to think that. But this morning, and at mid-day, and again towards dusk, I kept thinking 'I wish I had my camera.' (I'd left it at home because of threatening rain and sleet.) The clouds, propelled by an oncoming front, billowed in a way that is unusual for southern skies, and were backlit with light and color. The light illuminated the fading oranges and browns in the streamside forest at the Garden, shading them a golden orange. Opportunity lost, perhaps, but I do have the memory of the clouds and their color.

One of our family traditions is a morning 'hike' on Thanksgiving. Sometimes this is a long hike, in our nearby mountains; sometimes, it's closer. A favorite place is the Clemson University Experimental Forest, created by a federal program during the Great Depression to purchase farming land worn-out from the demands of cotton and corn on hilly slopes. It's now an excellent forest, a mix of ~ 75 year-old oak-hickory forests, planted pines, and lots in between, thanks to succession and forestry rotations. The area around Lake Issaqueena is especially nice, as it's an unofficial natural area - a great place for a morning walk.

It's always fun to preserve leaves, whether by pressing, laminating, or soaking in glycerin. I just fished out the leaves I'd had soaking. Their colors are muted, but still lovely.

Everyone is commenting on how beautiful our fall colors have been this year. We normally have very nice color, but this year is DEFINITELY beyond the usual. The reds are vibrant, the golden colors are exceptional -- oh, dear, I've become really boring on this topic. But, the leaves are dropping fast now. Today was one of four local photography days, organized by The Arts Center, and sponsored by the City of Clemson, to reflect what happens in our Upstate SC college town. I took a few photos, on campus and in our own garden; the overcast skies made the colors.

It's been such an amazing fall color year; I just keep taking more photos. This dogwood is glorious now, with the bright gold of the hickory behind it.

View through the front gate It's not 'normally' so warm in early November (in the mid-70° F range); we often have what we call an Indian summer in September, and sometimes into October, but in a warming climate, I guess temperatures are more variable than ever (at least some models predict this!) Flowering dogwood But, fall color this year is absolutely amazing -- it's late, but the vivid yellows, reds, and oranges have clear notes, and the peak (this week) is more vibrant than I've ever seen it here before (we've lived here almost 15 years).

The University's Fall break (timed with the November election) gave us a bit more time to enjoy some balmy November weather. Along the dikes, separating Lake Hartwell from campus, we didn't see anyone else until late in our walk. But we admired a cormorant diving, several great blue herons, a green heron, and gulls recently arrived from the coast. The camera caught a striking reflection of fall color surrounding the sand spit, which we hadn't noticed, being focused on the herons, but was a nice surprise. I've been wishing I had a chipmunk photo -- this one gave me a perfect opportunity, foraging for seeds along the dike's rip-rip banks.

The Eastern U.S. is fortunate to have deciduous temperate forests that display beautiful fall colors. From maples, hickories, oaks, sweetgums, black gums, sourwood, and poplars, with a myriad of other species, our deciduous trees put on a spectacular fall show. An early morning walk found plenty to admire. Sourwood in the Schoenike Arboretum Fall color in Heritage Garden picnic area

Cold nights and sunny days have accelerated fall color in the last week. Yellows, reds, and oranges are becoming more vivid (and spectacular). There have been pockets of frost in low-lying areas, but the freeze warning last night didn't materialize here. I harvested all the tomatoes and peppers yesterday, in any case, and have several large bowls of tomatoes on the kitchen counter. Coming home this evening, the bottlebrush buckeye was lovely, and the color of the dogwood in front, backlit from the setting sun, spectacular.

A neighborhood black gum is putting on a brilliant show. I don't know why this tree is so colorful. It's a bit spindly, near the road, not looking terribly robust, but is gorgeous. Ours isn't showing any color at all yet.

The light on an early evening in fall is great--illuminating the front meadow and our neighbor's big oak. The sprawling aster (probably a New England aster cultivar), is swarmed by bees, and the clumps of Indian grass (a wonderful replacement for non-native ornamental grasses for us) is spectacular.