The last few days have been very busy with heavy autumn work.  Even with two of us working most of the time, there has been  lot to do, but also a lot got done.

This shot, taken just a week ago, is already out of date, since the leaves on the Crape Myrtle, 'Natchez,' on the left have already turned yellow, and most fallen to the ground.  The Katsura on the right has also lost most of its leaves.

One of the things that got done today was the final digging out of the grass and putting in edging strips for the entrance of the labyrinth.  It has taken so long because I have been debating how to finally lay it out.  In the photo on the left, in the lower left corner is a spreading rosemary, seeming at the end of the flower bed.  Now, the bed extends another four feet, and I moved part of the tree peony from the North Garden just a foot to the left of the rosemary.  Pictures later.

Much of the work for this time of year is not dramatic.  We spent a morning cutting down a yew hedge at the side of the sun porch, and digging out most of the stumps.  It will become the site for a triple bin compost heap. We put in a temporary hardware cloth and metal post bin for the winter.  I spent a lot of time and energy taking the top off of the existing pile, mixing it in with leaves that David collected and chopped up with the mower before they all blew away. 

The Viburnum rhytidophylloides, 'Allegheny,' is blooming profusely, again in the autumn, which always seems strange to me.  There are even a few red berries, but typically it gets hit by a frost before it can produce many berries, and just looks bedraggled. For a time of year when little is blooming, I shouldn't complain, but it is a surprising cycle.  Maybe it is as confused as the many daffodils, which have pushed their leaves up five inches above the round, thinking that maybe spring has arrived.  Two years ago the same bush did this end-of-the-year growth, and was severely frozen back by the winter cold, killing many branches.  It is just beginning to look good again. 

Every fall the climbing rose in the North Garden, a Rosa x 'Meivaleir' 'Garden Sun,' does a final explosion of flowers at the end of October into November.  Even knowing it will probably do so again, the exuberance of flowers are surprising, especially since the canes always look very beat up and bare.  

Catching up on April

I confess, I have been delinquent in putting up new photos for the last, oops, two months.  I have been taking the pictures, but I was gone for almost three weeks in April on a trip to Italy, and then I worked on narrowing down the more than 900 pictures do a manageable 375 and post them on Shutterfly. So, looking back at April, here is what I can show you.

This photo actually dates to before April, when the leaves on the Katsura Heronswood Globe were just emerging.  I wanted to document the progression in color and overall appearance of the leaves on this tree over the first few weeks in Spring. I know there is international interest in the Heronswood Globe because one of the most frequently viewed picture on this blog is one I took of that tree. 

When the leaves are first emerging, there is this interesting blend of light yellow green and burgundy red, making a short term display. 

As the foliage matures over the next 3-4 weeks, the green color deepens into the tone on the right.  However, the leaves on the tips still retain that burgundy color as a light coating on portions of the leaves.  Many websites talk about the foliage color in the fall, but fail to mention this transition in spring. Some places describe the foliage as a blue-green, which doesn't fit what I have seen.  This specimen is in a full-sun situation, and combined with our high temperatures and high humidity in July and August, that may shift the color away from any really blue cast? 

This is an early shot of Cotinus coggygria, the variety Young Lady, which is very slow growing.  There are already pictures, which I will post later, that show it in full bloom, and it is spectacular this year.  It had been in another, prime location in the front of the labyrinth for many years, but never performed well enough to earn its visibility.  So, we moved it a year ago, and put the standard dwarf cedar in its place.  Maybe it is shy and needed a more modest spot, because this year it looks the best it has ever looked. 

You will see water on the next few shots, because I was out early in the morning after a light rain. Those drops of water always sparkle on the flowers and foliage.  On the smoke bush, they bead up dramatically.

The next shot of a rosebud growing in front of the fence in the Secret Garden flouts its water drops in a spectacular way. It just looks so fresh and inviting.  This bush out-performed what it had done any previous years, with dozens of flowers over some weeks of time.  The problem with traveling in April is not being able to enjoy them every day.  After the first flush of warm weather, things cooled back down enough that many flowers lasted far longer than usual.

Moving onto the peonies.  This one, a Kopper Kettle, bloomed for the first time in the three years it has been in the garden!  It had about a dozen flowers.  Curiously, some formed on woody stems above ground, and some on new foliage that emerged from the ground.  As an inter-species variety, with both tree and herbaceous peony parentage, I think each side was showing off!  I took several pictures of this plant, and this one is the most representative of them all.  But I have to say, there were surprising variations - one had bright streaks of magenta on its petals.

This white peony is what I call a "classic" because it traces its heritage to plants growing on the farm my parents bought in 1964 in Pleasant Valley, New York.  I have kept bringing new divisions of it to each garden I have made over the years, and I hope to have one growing nearby into my old age.  These flowers have a strong, spicy fragrance, and a bouquet of 6-8 will fill a room with their heady power.  I have no idea what variety this might be, or where to find that information.  It is tough, lives where ever it is put, and makes me very happy when it is blooming.

I will close with this picture of a soggy common sage plant growing near the front steps.  I am glad we have it there, so I really do notice it blooming.  I would not normally recommend sage for its flowers, but these are worth a front row spot.  This is an area where the previous owner of the house put in a deep layer of gravel, with little soil, and it gets baked in the hot sun during the summer.  If we can get herbs established here, they usually adore the conditions, and we get rich flavors for cooking.

I have lots of pictures from May  that I am working on, and will put them up soon. 

End of November

As the active growing season settles down, the mood in the yard has shifted, with the view of the Bay opening up as trees lose their leaves, and the dominant color is no longer green.

Relationships between plants and sections shift, as the evergreens grow in prominence, the bare branches of the deciduous shrubs become transparent, and herbaceous perennials shrink down to the cluster of leaves at the base or disappear altogether.

The view from the path circling around to its end in the center shows some of the changes.  There are only a few leaves left on the Katsura, while the crape myrtle directly ahead is still dark green with leaves.  The very dark green of the Japanese cedars appears almost black, while the blue-green leaves of the false indigo at the bottom/front of the photo are losing intensity.  The two evergreens behind the crape myrtle are shifting.  The Dawn Redwood, just to the right of the crape myrtle is shifting color from green to bright brown, soon to a golden brown before the needles are dropped for the winter.  Then further to the right, the Franklinia has yet to move into its dominant winter role as the only large evergreen visible in the view to the Bay.   So, as the trees that block the view of the Bay during the summer become bare branches, other trees step forward.  Soon much of the foliage will need to be cleaned out, creating an openness that is refreshing.

Turing to the right, the mixture of shapes and colors of the border hedge along our neighbors yard attract much more attention.  The yellow-green of threadleaf false cypress, the narrow vertical shapes of the Sky Pencil hollies, the irregular masses of the Chesapeake hollies, the red berries of the Winterberries are all playing against each other.  The Osmanthus, which are still small and cannot be seen in the spaces in front of the white fence on the right side of this photo.  Eventually they will fill that area in with a mixture of green, white, and red accents. 

I will end with the view over the heather garden toward the Bay.  It is a mixture with a sprawling rosemary in the front, grasses, spirea, clethra, and all of the trees.

Katsura and Viburnum

The Katsura "Heronswood Globe" has now reached its peak color for the fall, a brilliant yellow that glows with the sun coming through the leaves.   This is almost the same color as Ginkgo leaves which are also changing color at the same time, but it is a much more manageable sized tree, only growing up to 15 feet.

I found it at the National Arboretum sale, like so many others, but it is commonly available in many nurseries.  In the five years it has been in place, it has grown a substantially thicker trunk and is now about 8 feet tall.  Some scale of its height can be determined by the Karl Foerster Feather Reed Grass on the right edge of the photo, which is about 5 feet tall.

I irreverently call it my lollipop tree, because of the round ball on top of the stick of a trunk.  It is the only tree that will be planted in the labyrinth, and provides shade for the center.  Soon there will be a chair under it where people can sit in the shade and look at the Bay.

To the right side of the photo, in the back, there is a large, dark green leaved bush.  That is a Viburnum rhytidophylloides Alleghany, which was developed and introduced by the National Arboretum. 

It has deeply indented veins in its leaves, creating shadow lines when the light is right.  The flowers come both in the fall and the spring, and sometimes, as in the photo at the left, berries have already developed before the rest of the cluster of flowers begins blooming.  It is unusual.

This is a very tough shrub, that was bought just after buying the house, and temporarily planted on the north side.  By the time it was moved into its current location a few years ago, it had already grown quite a bit with a large root system.  Digging it out, one root was particularly hard to cut off.  Then a few weeks later when the oil furnace and water heater seemed to have run out of oil, the technician discovered the copper supply line running twelve inches deep alongside the house has been cut!  Oops!

Because this shrub holds its leaves through all but the worst winters, it provides an important screening for the center part of the garden.  It blocks the view into the garden from the houses behind it, and further up the street, offering some sense of privacy.  Here is another view of a cluster of berries and flowers.

Going back to that chair under the Katsura, you may be wondering where is this view of the Bay?  Why is this blog called the Labyrinth by the Bay, when there have been no pictures that showed any kind of view, water or otherwise?   So, here it is, when you turn your back to all of these details.