Garden Share Bristol

Happy Halloween!

You can keep your burning bush pink and your orangey-red Autumn Blaze maple (the "it" tree for fall color around here these days); I'll take the dark, luxurious reds of fragrant sumac, Rhus aromatica, any time.

The glossy foliage catches the low autumn light and adds depth and complexity — plus a touch of glamour — to this Rocky Mountain native.

Hands down, the best shrub for full sun, poor soils, and dry conditions when your goal is super red fall foliage.

Geranium spp.

The last few days I've been seeing orange everywhere!  From soft, pale coral to intense, almost red (and I'm not even talking pumpkins!). . .

'Autumn Brilliance' serviceberry. This Amelanchear may morph into red.

Engleman ivy.  Parthenocissus may run rampant, but fall color never disappoints.

St. Johnswort.  Hypericum is not known for its fall color, but it's always showy.

The plumes get the press with maiden grass, but Miscanthus foliage color is terrific.

An unknown hawthorn, Crataegus spp., gets orange right.

Orange sand cherry, Prunus besseyi, plays well with the blue berries of Oregon grape holly, Mahonia.

Wind delivered beauty: leaves from a neighbor's 'Autumn Blaze maple, Acer x freemanii 'Jeffersred'.

Little bluestem grass, Schizachyrium scoparium, has luscious color that will hold well into winter.

Orange you glad it's October?

Well, that's it for our fabulous fall weather, and now the garden clean up begins, including unplugging a clogged drain!!

Plenty of green still in the garden, including calabrese sprouting broccoli, radishes and corn salad


Garlic was planted, Susan Delafield is a beauty

Last of the fall harvest, including Painted Lady runner beans and tomatillos
"The Crew" braving the weather
So that just about wraps up our garden report for 2012, with perhaps a few more visits to check on our fall planted crops

The so-called "breezy" conditions of the past 12 hours brought down this 50 year old Douglas fir tree at the end of my street.



Note the red carpet and plastic used under the rock mulch. Did a good job of keeping the weeds out.  Kept all the water out too.  The soil is absolutely dry.  Poor tree never had a chance!

During our recent travels to Wyoming we visited this National Historic Landmark in the Bighorn Mountains.  The 75 foot diameter medicine wheel, at an elevation of 9,642 feet, is thought to be about 700 years old and built by the Crow Indians.

It was a very moving experience to hear a native American man chanting prayers there while viewing a state-of-the-art communications structure in the near distance.

When loud the bumblebee makes haste, 

Belated, thriftless vagrant, 

And goldenrod is dying fast, 

And lanes with grapes are fragrant;

When gentians roll their fingers tight 

To save them for the morning, 

And chestnuts fall from satin burrs 

Without a sound of warning;

When on the ground red apples lie 

In piles like jewels shining, 

And redder still on old stone walls 

Are leaves of woodbine twining;

When all the lovely wayside things 

Their white-winged seeds are sowing, 

And in the fields still green and fair, 

Late aftermaths are growing;

When springs run low, and on the brooks, 

In idle golden freighting, 

Bright leaves sink noiseless in the hush 

Of woods, for winter waiting;

When comrades seek sweet country haunts, 

By twos and twos together, 

And count like misers, hour by hour, 

October's bright blue weather.

O sun and skies and flowers of June, 

Count all your boasts together, 

Love loveth best of all the year 

October's bright blue weather.