Monthly Archives: November 2022

Autumn Color and Holiday Cactus

We had freezing or near-freezing temperatures in early November and I expected all the tree leaves would have changed color then. Many waited, though, until this past week and there are still some spectacularly showy trees around the neighborhood.

Two Japanese maples in our woodland garden last week.
Brilliant color and texture from these two beauties.
And then there was a windy, rainy weekend, and here are those same leaves just a few days later–not a leaf left on the trees!
Here’s our new little buddy exploring all the fallen leaves.
Not a great photo, but this Japanese maple just a block away is gorgeous–and didn’t lose all its leaves yet.
My Thanksgiving cactus is blooming at the right time. This is a particularly colorful cultivar.

Arboretum Walk

Brother Tim and I renewed our family autumn arboretum walk tradition last weekend. We had a glorious, sunny day and there was a lot to see and many seeds followed us home.

Tim surprised by hardy palm trees!
Gorgeous Stewartia trunk and leaves.
Camellia flower.
Camellia.
Camellia in full bloom.
Camellia flower close-up.
Styrax obassia–very cool trunk.
Lots of fall foliage colors.
Stewartia flower.
Fantastic Cyclamen leaves and pretty flowers.
I think Nerine sarniensis, the Guernsey Lily.
Lovely view of maples and others.
As we left, we spotted this hardy Scheflerra, usually a tropical species, blooming late and spectacularly.
The light was beautiful on the autumn-flushed leaves.

I planted all the seeds that followed me home in pots this weekend to scarify them and see what comes up in the next year or two.

Many of my tonsai starts came from similar annual trips. And this rose, with which I have a love/hate relationship, came from an arboretum seed decades ago.

This is a robust and maleficent marauder, seeding around my garden and likely others, but it has beautiful, cheerful hips in the fall.