Early Autumn 2018

Peak color for Autumn in Northeastern Pennsylvania is expected in the next week or so, and most leaves are still green. Word is that the warm, wet weather has kept the trees from beginning to go into dormancy, which would cut off the production of chlorophyll and cause the leaves to show their true colors and then die. Nighttime temperatures have started to dip, so the leaves may begin to show some color before they fall with a sickening thud in a few weeks.

Sweet Autumn Clematis started to show up in our yard a few years ago. I had no idea what it was until a friend posted about it last month. While it is sold as a garden plant, for us this is something of an invasive perennial, swarming over our rhododendrons and smothering them. However, the thick, matted growth forms a soft bed that allows the neighborhood feral cats to relax comfortably seven feet off the ground.

In high-contrast monochrome

After roses have bloomed and dropped their petals, rose hips form. Blaze and Double Delight rose hips aren't especially noteworthy, but Royal Highness hips are a bright red-orange. Wile the pits - rose seeds - are large, the flesh is thick and tasty. Rose hips are supposed to be rich in vitamin C, but you would probably have to eat a lot of them to get any significant amount. 

Burning Bush is a variety of euonymus that turns bright crimson in the Autumn. Like everything else, mine is slow to change color this year. I pruned it back a bit this year - while it took a few decades to amount to anything much, in the last few years it has exploded with growth, enough to spread across the property line and reach towards the neighbors' cars in their driveway - and the bits that I pruned off quickly turned bright red.

I had to run an early-afternoon errand, and when I got back the sun was surrounded by a beautiful halo with two bright sundogs (or parhelia), one on either side of the sun. But by the time I got my camera and got back outside, the clouds had thickened up and the optical effects had disappeared. I later headed out to a sale at Boscov's in Wilkes-Barre - my mom likes their fudge, and the sale was offering discounts of ten to twenty-five percent. Unfortunately, so did hundreds of other people, and the Boscov's parkade was almost completely filled. I was able to snag a spot on the roof when someone else left. Boscov's rooftop parking deck offers some great views, so I tried to get some photos. In the one above, all the optical phenomena seem to be concentrated on the left side of the sun: the twenty-two degree halo, the parhelic circle (the curved band extending almost horizontally to the left), and the sundog (or parhelion) where the two appear to intersect. 

Across Franklin Street from Boscov's is St. Stephen's Episcopal Church. The large rose window makes a beautiful sight from the lower parking decks of Boscov's, and the bells play Westminster Chimes on the half- (or possibly quarter-) hour.

So will Autumn colors brighten up before Winter sets in? That remains to be seen.