Usually the Acers are the stars of the October garden, but with our warm spell having lasted so long, this year it is November before they have reached their full finery. As the days have gone by the colours have changed, becoming a more fiery red and orange and when the sun has shone through the leaves they are like a stained glass window, wonderful.
To start with on the tall tree, which I think might be Acer plamatum, the change is very subtle and not very noticable.
Then suddenly one day it dawns on me that the colour has turned to a more caramel colour with touches of red and now not much green left at all.
I think it has reached its peak here, such a gorgeous colour.
The last 2 photos were taken from an upstairs window, where you have a good view of the top of the tree. The green at the very top is a Clematis montana that has decided not to climb the ash next to it.
It now makes such a contrast with my other Acer Osakazuki.
They both look so well together and make November, or October, such colourful months.
The leaves are starting to fall already, I hope they last for a bit longer.
Acer Osakazuki goes through a khaki stage when there is still a lot of green left in the leaves, before changing to red. In this photo which was taken a week ago, it hasn’t yet achieved the brightness that it now has.
When the sun shines through the leaves, they look more yellow.
I’m also liking the way the bark is developing, the trunk and branches look quite black in contrast.
From underneath, the branches make lovely patterns against the colour of the leaves. Its nice that it has grown tall enough for me to get underneath considering that when I planted it it was only 2 ft tall!
The seeds that just a month ago were coloured red, have now bleached to beige. I must remember to collect some and sow them to see what colour the offspring will be.
Both trees together make the view out of all the back windows, so colourful at this time of year, this was from one of the spare bedroom windows. I look forward to it every autumn and wish it wasn’t so fleeting , but its well worth the wait!
Our forecast was for frost this weekend, so I wasn’t sure what would happen to the colourful leaves, would it enhance them or make them drop off altogether? As it turned out we didn’t seem to have any frost, but the cold north wind came and blew a lot of the orange leaves away into the woodland and some of the red Osakazuki leaves have crisped up as if I had fried them! So the wonderful colours from my Acers are over for another year, but the interest was there for a month and was good while it lasted.
Lovely that the wonderful autumn colours came at long last Pauline. I have also seen the ‘fried’ appearance of some acer leaves. I wonder why that happens sometimes?
The colours certainly took their time coming Denise, but it was worth the wait. I think the “fried” appearance is just caused by the freezing cold wind that we had coming straight from the north pole, they have been freeze dried, all the moisture has been taken away by the wind, like the washing on a windy day!
Oh, what stunning colours. That is certainly a beautiful display.xxx
Thanks Dina, thay have made a wonderful splash of colour in the back garden, all the orange leaves have gone now and I think the gales this coming weekend will finish off the red ones unfortuntaely.x
Fabulous colours, what a treat this autumn has been. My acers have finished but there is still plenty of colour.
The colours were a long time coming Chloris, but well worth the wait. The gales this weekend have blown most of them away!
Glorious colour, Pauline – it’s certainly worth raking all the leaves to have these!
Thanks Cathy, the gales this weekend have blown all the leaves into the woodland, so no raking for me to do this time!