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Often the leaves don’t change colour very much here in autumn. This year though, they were much more golden than usual.
Our autumns are usually mild, with rain and stiff breezes that carry away a lot of the leaves. This October, however, was much warmer and sunnier than usual during the day and the clear skies allowed the temperature to drop a lot at night. The result has been good displays of golden leaves in gardens and the countryside around us. (Happy timing for us, because a good friend had come to stay, so we were keen to show off the beauties of Suffolk.)
The leaves above belong to our smoke bush (Cotinus), which is the most reliable producer of autumn colour in the garden. It also provides me with leaves that are low enough down for me to be able to photograph them close up. A large Himalayan birch and a rowan tree have both coloured well, as has a wisteria. There are not many red leaves though. A cherry tree and a crab apple both produce some red but the leaves have already blown off. (And had to be fished out of the pond! Luckily that’s a job I find quite satisfying.)
Ann Mackay: Inspired by Nature 
Ah, I immediately wondered if it was Cotinus! What a wonderful study in colour, light, and shadow! Wow and {applause}
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Thank you Liz! I appreciate your comment especially because I wasn’t sure about the pic. 🙂
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The color is pretty, but the play of shadows over the leaves is equally attractive. We’ve not had much color this year, but it’s stayed relatively warm, too. Now that a front has come through, and there are predictions of a freeze a hundred miles or so north of me, we may be moving toward a more colorful time!
What color are your Rowan leaves? I had a friend with roots in England whose name was Rowan. I just looked up the name, and found this: “Rowan is a historically masculine name of Irish and English origins. In Ireland, it’s derived from the Irish name Ruadhán, which means “red-haired.” That made me wonder if your Rowan leaves are red.
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Here, our tree has yellow leaves now but I can’t remember if we had any red leaves on rowans in Scotland. (Where I was brought up was very windy and few trees, so any autumn colour didn’t last long!) I suspect that the red part of the name comes from the red berries which had a lot of significance in folklore and traditions. (I wrote a post about that a few years ago: https://annmackay.blog/2018/11/04/rowan-lore/ )
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Thanks for the link, Ann. That was a fascinating read!
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I’m very glad that you enjoyed it! 🙂
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A lovely photo Ann. We don’t get much colour down here either. Some yellows and coppers when the beech trees turn.
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Thank you Jude. I miss the stronger colours we got in Scotland. (But not the colder weather!)
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Your intriguing light-and-shadows photograph brought to mind these two lines from Byron:
“And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes….”
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Beautiful lines…reminds me that I’d like to spend more time reading poetry!
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Is there anything to stop you from reading more poetry?
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Just time, like so many other things. However, there should be more time for reading in winter… 🙂
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Ah, autumn colour. Plenty here too but not had chance to enjoy much of it. It’s been a very foggy month and this morning there was freezing fog. Have seen mainly grey or nothing for ages. A nice blue sky autumn day with mosaics of blown leaves on the floor is a nice memory. The leaves are all soggy and squished with mud now.
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It has been very wet here too, so the garden hasn’t exactly been inviting. (But I shouldn’t complain about the rain after such a dry summer.) A bit of sun would be very welcome…
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There’s a smoke bush around the corner where I walk Bentley but I hadn’t noticed how nice and yellow they become and of course it’s too late now. I like how the shadow gives an impression of red.
Wisteria! A co-worker gave me a tiny cutting many years ago and as much as I like the flowers, which are usually killed here by late frosts, I hate how it spreads everywhere in the yard. We find runners dozens of feet away in other gardens and along our house foundation..
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Our smoke bush is a purple-leaved variety and also has a lot of red/orange leaves – whether you look at it from the front/sunny side or the backlit side makes a big difference to how the leaves look too.
Oo-er – hope we can keep our wisteria in check – don’t want it to become a monster, LOL!
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