Good heavens, what have I unleashed? Last fall I was so worked up about the changing colors I was experiencing in my garden and all over town (it was hard to cross the Fremont Bridge without ogling the hillsides of Forest Park and Northeast Portland...jumping glorious), I now have twice as many (no maybe three times as many) amazing players to wiggle over with visual joy (and the katsuras smell good too!). And then there's the dancers still in pots, moving around the dance floor, looking for the right partner to show off their dresses (scintillating, somber, vibrating, sunny, amethyst, amber, ruby, ochre, ruddy, merlot, incendiary, infernal, smoldering, glowing, HOT).
Everyone is saying the confluences of weather conditions is making this a particularly brilliant Fall...okay, lovely...but as I continue to furnish my garden with color and maximize dancing partners, I am astounded at the party going on outside my windows right now. The 80 ft ash trees down garden at the creek are still fluttering golden beyond the firs and spruce. Cornus sericea and bird plums, lend orange-reds and burgundy. In my neighbor's otherwise junkyard, an old green gage plum gives up a chartreuse backlight to the dark green fig (and in the foreground of this scene, my queen katsura pendula elegantly anchors the Long Bed).
I painted my shed chartreuse, ochre and gold...it always makes me smile. Right now, this moment, the shed looks like a castle in a Crayola wood...cornus kousa chinensis is appropriately chinese lacquer red. Viburnum plicatum and cornus circinatum embrace like an amber shawl the west facing window of the structure. Acer palmatum 'Matsu Kaze' and 'Utsu Semi' play at their feet. 'Crimson Queen' cozys up behind 'Matsu Kaze', making the both of them well-dressed celebrities. Out of view but not far from mind a.p. aconitifolium is dancing (peacocks!) outside the dining room window, every day a new shade, a new mood, leaf by leaf, to enthrall me.
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| Cornus kousa chinensis |
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| Cercidiphyllum japonicum pendula |
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| The shed castle |
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| The west-facing border |
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| Acer japonicum aconitifolium |
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| acer rufinerve 'Winter Gold' ? |
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| acer palmatum 'Matsu Kaze', 'Crimson Queen' and viburnum plicatum in the foreground |
One can only live in the moment in the garden. The bulbs I planted last week are only distant hum in the background, quietly waiting for the crazy love I'll no doubt write about them in a few months...but now, glorious now, c'est automne!
