It's been a while since I've posted, but I've missed sharing some of my garden happenings this past summer. So I'm doing a series of catch-up posts to show you the highlights...
Ah, that wonderful, colorful foliage of japanese maples: browns and yellows and reds. Is there a better tree for autumn color?
The leaves have mostly all fallen now, but a week or two ago there were some great splashes of color in my garden. In fact, it seemed to me that the entire St. Louis area was more colorful this fall than it has been for a while. Very nice while it lasted.
This is the time of year when parts of my garden surprise me. It's as if I don't really see what's there until some of the surrounding greenery fades. Leaves fall and cover the ground in browns, and then suddenly I have something wonderful here.
You know how some siblings don't really share a resemblance, even though they have the same parents and might have been born only a year or two apart?
It's always wonderful to see the Japanese maples budding in the spring, quickly going from barren to beautiful.
I've been quite busy recently, not only preparing for the cold air that's now here and is resulting in low temperatures of 25ºF (-4ºC) or less every night this week, but with some work deadlines. So I haven't had much time to think about putting together a post. I did see a few things yesterday that stood out for me though, enough so that I took a couple of minutes off from moving pots and digging up plants to capture some images.
Japanese maples in the spring are wonderful, their foliage so fresh and perfect, as yet untouched by the blasts of summer heat. Plenty of water available, cool temperatures, vibrant colors -- but this post is not going to be a survey of my maples.
I've been enjoying the fall color this year, trying to take photos as soon as I notice something that is really nice -- the one problem I have with autumn is the colorful days are just over too quickly!
Although the fall color has not yet peaked here, most of the trees are starting to do their thing, turning those amazing colors for a day or two or more if we're lucky and weather conditions are right.
Since I finally got the patio cleaned up for spring, I was able to take a good look at it. One of my favorite things about it right now is the Japanese maple. Or should I say maples plural, because I have two here. I tend to just think of the one though, because it's doing so well.
Like almost every tree and shrub around, the Japanese maples have leafed out already. Mild winter means I'm very nervous about late freezes. (Spring 2007 was like that, and many Japanese maples were heavily damaged that year -- a lot of them in the area got removed later that summer.)
I took a lot of photos in 2011 -- over 5300 -- and shared most of them with you in these posts. Here are some of my favorites from the past year.
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| January: water drops on window pane |
Just when I think that the autumn colors are done for the year, a few of the smaller plants in my garden crank up the vibrancy.
For me nothing says autumn like falling tree leaves, and the often vibrant colors they take on before dropping.
Today I continue my recent visit to the Missouri Botanical Garden. Part 1 is here and part 2 is here in case you missed them.
One of the things I love about this time of year is the garden centers all start having clearance sales. That pricey new cultivar I've been eyeing all summer was easy to pass up at $14, but for $7 I'll give it a shot! I'm being really good this year with restraint -- since I already have too many plants than I know what to do with, I'm being pretty selective. Keeping the impulse buys to a minimum is important, but I've also learned that it's important to make a quick decision on the sale plants. If you wait a day to decide the plants will be gone when you return. (I know about that from experience.)
My Japanese maple 'Fireglow' (or whatever it really is) has been very impressive this year. I wrote about it earlier this spring, but it's still spectacular. Not only has it finally filled out after five years in the ground, but it's producing seeds like crazy.
Yesterday afternoon as the temperature soared to 90ºF/32ºC - way above normal again - I was trying to find easy tasks to do in the garden. "I know, I'll get the dead annual vines out of the Japanese maple!" I thought. This tree is now touching my pergola, and the vines growing there move into the tree. I'm pretty good at keeping them off the tree for most of the year but toward the end of the season I "relax" a little (get lazy) and a few get into the branches.
After the huge projects of 2006, 2007 was relatively quiet. I didn't need to excavate any giant holes, move any rocks or build any structures. There was some digging involved though, because I planted a few more trees and prepared a few new planting beds.
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