Six on Saturday – Fall Foliage and End of Season Colour

It’s been a weird week — on and off rain accompanied by  afternoon temperatures approaching 30 at the beginning of the week that have since fallen to a more seasonal 10 or 11.  From singlets and shorts to jeans and plaid flannel shirts in just a few days.  Fitting that today is Pumpkinfest in Wellington (Prince Edward County, Ontario), where everything and everyone will be wearing pumpkin orange and celebrating the final harvests of the year.

There’s lots of orange around the yard, as well, provided mainly by tree and shrub foliage but also by marigolds and nasturtiums that continue to bloom.  Most of the perennials are done for the year but occasional splashes of colour can be found.  Here are five such splashes, plus a melon.

1:  Nasturtiums in my garden have flowered more in the past four weeks than during the height of summer – they must prefer the cooler temperatures and more frequent rain.  After years of growing them in the kitchen garden, I actually snipped off a few blooms this past week to add to our dinner salad.  Guess what?  They do, as everyone says, taste like radishes!

2:  The last cantaloupe of the year – it’s sitting on the kitchen counter now; I think I’ll have it with breakfast tomorrow.

3:  Oregano that I cut back mid August is blooming again, much to the delight of many bees.

4:  These Kordes ‘Crimson Bouquet’ roses keep setting bud and flowering.  It’s a grandiflora type of rose – and I’m learning that it’s a cross between a hybrid tea rose and a floribunda rose, if that means anything to anyone.  To me, it means it’s susceptible to black spot (marketing literature notwithstanding) and I’ve spent the summer plucking off afflicted leaves.  Still; it’s quite beautiful and, so far at least, worth the effort.

5:  Perhaps my favourite small tree, the Cornus alternifolia – Alternate Leaf Dogwood, aka Pagoda Dogwood. Striking branching structure, lovely white flower panicles in the spring and beautiful fall foliage.

6:  OK – I think I said last week’s Colchicum image would be the last of the year.  I lied.  Here, truly, is the last Colchicum image of the year, and only because next week, as you can likely tell, they’ll all be gone.

That’s it for this week.  I suspect that by next most of the maple, ash and butternut trees will be naked, the leaves are changing colour and falling so quickly now.  All that will be left hanging from trees will be oak and the dreaded buckthorn.  Still no frost in sight though, so the annuals should still be around.

To see collections of Six photos from other gardeners the world over, check out The Propagator’s site.