Yellow and hectic red

The wind is blowing hard today and sending the fallen leaves flying.

Photo: Autumn leaf litter

The trees fire on cue every year – first the sugar maple at the front glows golden, the birch trees at the back gleam with yellow leaf, and the virginia creeper on the fence goes crimson. After that, the pear tree on the driveway sparks orange, red and yellow, the weeping maples turn brilliant red, and the smoke bush burns orange. Next the cherries and japanese maples blaze together and it ends with the liquid amber, an afterglow at the bottom of the garden.

Right now the japanese maples are beginning to turn. While I wait eagerly for the colour explosion to occur, I will take a look as some of the other things that make this time of year special in my garden.

Words to walk with:

From Ode to the West Wind by P.B. Shelley

“O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes …”