Saturday, October 25, 2008

Understory Plants in the Golden Fall Light


Was head down, hard at work when I looked up and saw the sky had turned from grey to blue - the light was exceptional. Saw little woodpeckers dancing up and down my big old ash and cardinals hopping about - that was my sign to abandon my desk and go outside camera in hand. Took a shot of the neighbourhood so you could see just how much green we still have.

I've been trying for days to capture the Mist Flower - invasive, but completely worth it - Eupatorium colestinum (blue coloured and blooms in the fall) and it's cousin Eupatorium rugosum 'Chocolate' (named for the leaves not the flowers). You'd walk by these plants and never know they're related - it's only now looking at the flowers closeup that I really see the resemblance.























The Hydrangea quercifolia is so wonderful. So few of the hydrangeas we can grow here have leaves that colour so well.

Just next to the hydrangea is a Calycanthus florida - growing at the very tip of its range - the leaves are an exceptional yellow. It takes a fair bit of shade and dry being under an eastern white pine.

The threadleaf Japanese Maple is probably at its best today - in the next day or so it will be twigs sitting in a puddle of crimson orange leaves.

And can you get over the Hydrangea 'Lemon Wave' sending up a pure white stem. There's just a little bit of yellow on the edge of the odd leaf - very, very weird.

3 comments:

Glädjekällans Trädgårdsblogg said...

I also grow Calycanthus floridus and Acer dissectum. Both of them have lost their leaves.
In Swhedish we call Calycanthus floridus for Spicebusch, but why I don't know.
Birgitta

Anonymous said...

The Eupatorium flowers are fascinating especially the first one. Both pretty and unusual, I've never seen them before.

Barbarapc said...

Birgitta - we call Calycanthus floridus spicebush as well. Apparently there are spicebushes with scented flowers, mine are without any fragrance - also I noticed that when I moved it and managed to mangle the roots they had a very spicy unusual scent.
E.G. They really are very nice flowers - the only thing about 'Chocolate' is that it will get droopy if it doesn't have enough water.