Sunday, November 01, 2009

Autumn 2009

This year I never got a chance to go out and photograph the Autumn leaves until Halloween. Unfortunately, by that point half of the leaves were already off the trees and on the ground. I was outside at midday, about to start raking, when I noticed the beautiful pattern the leaves from the Japanese Red Maple had made. I went back into the house to get my camera and started taking pictures.

(I think this would make a beautiful endpaper for a book.)




A few years (or, maybe, decades) ago, we noticed a single sprig of what we thought was possibly a thorny Eucalyptus growing in a rock garden. We let it grow, wanting to see what it would turn out to be. After a few years we determined that it was a Barberry, probably a bird-propagated offspring from a stand of Barberry bushes along Main Street coming into Nanticoke. A week or two ago it made a very showy sight, but now it has lost many of its colorful leaves. Its bright red berries are more easily seen at this stage.



In all I think I collected seven large bags of leaves, and that's only about half of what I expect to get. Only ones scraped up from the road will be put out for the city; all others will be slow-composted (placed in bags with dirt and water added; the bags are then set aside, punctured with a shovel or pitchfork, and allowed to rot for five years or so) or used as mulch. (The bird netting that I put around my blueberries in the Spring will now serve to retain the leaves that I will pile on top of each blueberry bush for the Winter.)


(For the record: I believe my rosebushes officially stopped opening new buds as of yesterday. I don't recall rosebushes ever producing right up until the end of October. It may have something to do with the fact that I have been picking a rose every day and placing it on Gretchen's grave.)

2 comments:

Ashley said...

I love Japanese Maples. They are so beautiful.

MaryRuth said...

That maple leaf photo is awesome!
I wish I could have taken those seven bags of leaves from you to use in our spooky graveyard haunt. We have to go around the city and look for Japanese maples and rake up leaves to put on our lawn. Crazy, but it looks so nice.