The warm weather has continued, but now we are having torrential rain each night so the garden is absolutely sodden and even flooded in places. Warm sunshine during the day is wonderful of course but having higher than average temperatures at night, means that most of the beautiful autumn colours are absent so far, they come when the temperature drops right down at night.
My six for Saturday are as follows….
No 1 Horse Chestnut tree.
The horse chestnuts in the back garden are showing signs of autumn, but no conkers, where are they all? Normally I have loads of them on the back lawn and have to put up with the squirrels digging holes everywhere to bury them! Not this year though, I wonder why.
No 2 Iris unguicularis Walter Butt.
At the side of the driveway, sheltered behind one of my box cubes, is Iris Walter Butt. I always get a lovely surprise when he starts flowering, then continues on and off all winter, he must be a lot tougher than he looks!
No 3 Ilex Golden King.
Golden King holly is decorated ready for Christmas. I showed you this a while ago, but the berries were just yellow then, they have now changed to red and there are so many of them, I hope the birds leave a few for me to enjoy!
No 4 Geranium Rozanne.
Geranium Rozanne has flowered all summer and shows no sign of stopping yet.
The flowers are such a beautiful blue and contrast with all the yellowing foliage around them.
No 5 Acer Osakazuki.
Normally at this time of year I’m showing photos of my favourite Acer Osakazuki in all its autumn glory with bright pink/red leaves, not this year though! I only have a couple of leaves that have changed colour, the rest of the tree is way behind, maybe by next week?
No 6 Taxus baccata.
The yew in the corner of the back garden is well and truly decorated ready for Christmas! Just think, if the birds eat all these berries and the seed gets dropped where it can germinate, I’m going to be able to plant my hedge after all!
Those are my six for today, thanks again to Jon The Propagator for hosting, do pay him a visit to see what is happening in gardens round the world.
Love that pic of the yew, I don’t think I’ve seen that before 🙂
Hi Megan, I’ve never known the yew to have so many berries before, we have lived here for 30 yrs and this year is the best yet!
I look forward to the acer color, maybe next week. My experience with a Japanese acer I grew in the Northeast. Spectacular color and then POOF, all on the ground in a day! Here in the South we have a very muted change of color and I miss the rich gold of the maples and the bright red and oranges of the Fall colored leaves!
I’m looking forward to the change in my Acers Jayne, I love the wonderful colours that emerge in the autumn when the temperature drops. As you say, we then have to hope that we don’t get a gale to spoil it all!
It’s so nice that you still have the Autumn colours to look forward to Pauline. Here they are mostly at their best just now though one windy day took away quite a lot. Rozanne is a real trooper isn’t she?
I think the colours will hopefully be spread over a few weeks Denise, as long as the wind doesn’t spoil it all for us. Other trees are losing their leaves already, the lawn is covered with them all, so leaf sweeping will start in ernest from this week and I’ll still be doing it twice a week until Christmas! Yes, Rozanne is amazing, she flowers for such a long time and really earns her space in a garden.
Wonderful images, especially the iris, geranium and that delightful yew. My yew tree seems to have more berries each year. Funnily enough we’ve had no acorns this year.xxx
Dina, you’re right about the acorns, I hadn’t noticed that there weren’t any on the back lawn, this time last year there were thousands and the squirrels were burying them everywhere! So no conkers and no acorns, what is the wildlife going to do for their food, rather worrying. x
No doubt some will be telling us that old those berries mean a hard winter!
Hopefully Cathy everyone knows by now that it meant there were lots of flowers in the spring and they were probably formed the previous summer!