No pics to share, but IMO fall has been spectacular here - it's actually been the point of several discussions I've had the last few days. It seems to have arrived a bit late this year, but it's definitely here now! Driving to work in the morning with the early morning sun hitting the trees - it's been absolutely glorious! Clear, brilliant blue skies, beautiful colors... gosh, I love this time of year!

Reds have been particularly missing this year here. October has been dry and warm, with overnight temperatures particularly being higher than normal. A few more reds have showed up in the past few days but it's definitely been a bland season here this year - nowhere near as showy as in your pictures Babs!

Oh my, what glorious pictures. I love the color Fall gives us, a last hurrah, before going to sleep for the winter. We don't have much red in nature out here in the west but my dogwood out front looks like this most years.

A closeup...

The VC has grown further along the fence since this picture was taken. We don't have a fancy place but it's home to us.

Annette

The color here has been great, and then non-existent, and then still waiting. The early turn of maples was absolutely spectacular. Best in years. Then we had a couple really cold nights and that made a lot of my ornamentals (especially lace leaf Japanese maples) crispy. Those are a loss this year. The oaks are starting what appears to be a nice turn, but the ornamental shrubs and other trees in the yard have barely started turning yet.........it will be interesting to see if they get their blaze of color or peter out ahead of time. The larch is still completely green. I do hope it gets its blaze of yellow before the needles drop.

Barb, excellent photos!

Annette, I love that boston ivy! Have we seen pics of your tiny courtyard?

Awesome photos, everyone!

Annette - fabulous dogwood!

Thyme, yes I've posted a few pics of my tiny courtyard, nothing spectacular as it was just the top part of our gravel driveway fenced off once we gave out boat away to our SIL. I just started planting on either side randomly. Don't want to hijack Woody's thread so I'll post a few pics in another thread.

Annette

Practically nonexistent in the poplar wood - nothing changes colour much, just hits the ground fast so I have been adding willows, dogwoods, aronias, spindles and so on, in an effort to break up the deep green blandness - true, it is lush, but I want bright, glorious autumn, not just a colder summer, then whoosh, straight into winter.

Caught between envy and inspiration.

New pics/updates!

Campanula 'Dickson's Gold' with Bergenia and hardy Geranium leaves

Garden Sage

Euphorbia 'Glacier Blue' ?

Huchera 'Lime Marmalade" (?) Hellebore leaf

Acer japonicum 'Aconitifolium'

Fatshedera

Catkin - ooh that blusberry and Japanese maple! It's the reds I've been missing most... Actually this afternoon we did see a line of spectacular red maples (?) as we drove along a road near here. It was the first good reds we've seen on trees. A few burning bushes are decently red but the trees have been lacking it for whatever reason.

Woody, I think your garden is just wonderful; I always have. . The subtlety of the colors this year is as delightful in its own way as the more vibrant colors.

Thanks Cyn, but fall color is depressingly drab this year - and not just in our garden. Last fall was a bit disappointing too for color, so I hope this is not a 'new normal' for fall color!

Thanks Woody! Yes!

This shrub's name escapes me

Fern

Escallonia

This Achillea was planted quite some time ago and has recently decided to bloom. I think it is beautiful! I'd have to dig through my invoices for the name, though.

Hydrangea

New growth on the Nandina domestica...love!

Deciduous Larch never disappoints, just keeps turning from blue to gold more every day.

One of the joys of fall is noting the little bits of color and shapes of plants that often get lost in their lushness during the summer/spring. Two of my peonies' foliage have turned a deep black while keeping their fine shapes. Some of the hydrangeas are showing tinges of red along the edges of their leaves. Green hostas have turned a deep yellow. There is delight in seeing a single bloom of a special clematis or hardy geranium and other plants as well as appreciation of those that keeping blooming away, ie. Rozanne hardy geranium, and the plants that bloom in fall, goldenrod, sedums, mums, a reblooming iris, and the movement of changing colored foliage of grasses with their differing plumes. Annuals stand out while waiting for this year's late first frost.

Tree leaf color seemed a bit muted to me this fall as well but there are the special trees scattered here and there that I can always count on to blaze.

It makes me happy to know that some of you are getting wonderful color.

catkin you have the most fabulous plants and combos of. So good to see plants looking full of life.

woody I hope you get more color before near total leaf drop. Seems like rain did not bless us at the proper times.

We should have screaming red that is lacking and just more vibrant color in general. This is as good as it got and it only lasted about 3 days. Looking out my lane way on Oct. 14th. We are pretty bare now.

Peren.al, you might not have screaming red right now but you sure have some magnificent golds.... Cat, beautiful combinations.

Annette

Here's an example from the neighbourhood this morning - the yellow/gold is almost finished when the red finally developed to a half-decent state! (In a good year, this Japanese Maple is spectacular!)

Lovely fall scene on a carpet of gold.

Annette

Beautiful!! I spent two years in Vermont, very similar to the pics in NH. above. The most spectacular Fall colors I've ever seen.

My "Sharp's Pygmy" Japanese Maple, just starting to turn. So delicate.

Thalictrum 'Black Stockings' really glows a golden yellow.

tj

Something to look forward to, I just planted 'Black Stockings' this year. It's not very big yet but hopefully it'll come into it's own next year.

Annette

Most of the trees are bare now. Here and there we still see one that is late turning full of bright yellow orange leaves.

We were out raking the last of the fallen leaves into the beds this afternoon and I wandered around taking pictures too....

Backyard from the patio - SW side:

Up the north alley the eupatorium 'Chocolate' always looks good late into the fall, and the white corydalis is a nice feathery carpet of green still sprinkled with a few flowers:

Outside the north alley gate, the 'White Pearl' bugbane always has nice fresh flowers in November:

In the front yard the old-fashioned mums are still going strong, particularly the white ones:

I think it was Thyme who was interested in the cutting back of hibiscuses....? Here is what one of the clumps of pale pink ones along the driveway look like now (I always forget about those autumn crocuses until I cut back the hibiscuses and find them there!)

And here's a potted 'Magnum' heuchera that will winter in the garage and then be moved to a friend's garden in the spring. The cup thing in the pot is our rain gauge.

The angel roses have produced a fine crop of hips this year, which will make the robins happy come spring!

.. a delightful garden... and those rose hips!.. always a joy to see...

Simply gorgeous pictures of fall, especially those yellow trees by perenn.all. & your rose hips

I can relate to dismal fall color WO. We sometimes get those years.

Most trees are still green here because there's been no frost yet but we've had three rain's and I'm hoping to see some fall color this year in spite of the dry summer and early fall so the verdict is still out on color. The trees that are set on clocks based on # of daylight hours dictating them when to shut down are turning so there are hints of color here and there. Last year we skipped the frosts and went straight from very warm to a deep extended freeze. Blackened leaves hung on many trees and especially the Crepe Myrtles for months.

We get some of our best leaf color from the Crepe Myrtle's so that was a disappointment. It made for one ugly fall and beyond into winter, way worse than what you have this year Woody Oak. Those same Crepes had a lot of die-back on the tops we discovered come spring. This happens to some southern trees here in zone 7, the southern trees don't have serrated leaf edges which is how you can always tell trees from southern zones apart from trees that are from northern zones, I learned that just recently, its true once you look at the leaves so I thought that was interesting. Weird weather not allowing some of the southern trees to harden off can be fatal in rare years or kill them down to the roots.

The pink muhly grasses have geared up and are finally putting out gorgeous pink seed heads.

The colors here are still those of late summer but the clock is ticking.....

I'm enjoying all these photos, but is anyone else having issues with what appear to be incorrect photos with descriptions? There were two above that mentioned Japanese maples, but both pictures didn't look like it. Woody's picture of the rose hips is a blurry photo of what looks like a bald eagle or osprey on the water? I'm so confused! LOL! Anyone else having this issue? Going back through the thread it almost seems as if pictures/text have scrambled?

LOL! My rose-hip photo is certainly poor quality, but it's definitely not a bird of any sort! Have you tried clicking on the pictures to enlarge them?

Did my avatar get crunched with woody's pix on whatever device you are using, Thyme?

tj

Love my Japanese Maple, best color in my yard. All my heuchera still look like spring has just started!

Oh gaw, You got to be kidding. The Jap Maples look fried around here by fall. Thats just gorgeous! Mine died of heatstroke a few years back. RIP.

Awesome pics, everyone! (click to enlarge)

Ok, phew. This morning the thread is back to normal for me. All the pictures were scrambled. Woody those are nice hips!

Tsuga, it WAS your avatar that I was seeing as a full-size, blurry of course, photo in place of Woody's rose hips.

That was very odd indeed!

...I recognise lots of those cat....nice to see an ornamental cabbage too... sort of makes me feel at home..

This isn't bad for the beginning of November:

I have been out wandering far afield from my yard and got to see some fall in the high desert of New Mexico and Utah. It was a real treat because the colors can be muted down here in Texas. I am entranced by the notes of silver and glaucous green in the "normal Fall colors. That desert cobalt blue sky does not hurt ones eyes either. I swear that I did not mess with these colors.

I love the textures of the artemisias.

True, their rocks are in a general competition with the fall palette.

Here a frost was still caught between the hills one morning.

And then their is the grass. I was collecting seeds as fast as I could. My car is a huge mess of "Bio Mass". I want to take it ALL home with me.

wantonamara.... those are wonderfully scenic photos of country.... might I know the name of the river, if you happen to know it...? I like to look things up on maps... thank you.... no problem if you don't, or can't...

So nice to see the incredible range of autumn, depending on where one is. I've never been in the desert this late in the year, but it's clear that will have to be remedied.

Marlorena, I have the map addiction too. Google earth is my friend. That is a small reservoir north of rt.211 in Utah, ( the access road to the Needles district of the Canyonlands national park). I think it is on Indian Creek, not a river. A huge field of a thousand cows on one side of the road mooing and the other side was filled with ducks a-quacking. It is close to the confluence of the Green River and the Colorado river, but I never saw it because I did not have a high clearance 4 wheel drive and a highly skilled driver.

Babs, the crowds are much less also. The nights flirted with frost but mostly stayed around 40, but the layers fled off quickly once hiking.Easy camping for this cold adverse Texan. It has been a wet summer and fall in the desert. The canyons were full of blooming cleome of various colors, a few late Ipomopsis aggregata and a stray penstemon. The rain made some flowers think that it was spring. Next Spring will be huge with flowers judging from the amount of rosettes I saw germinating...Rain in the desert makes all those aromatic smells abound. It is heavenly. I tried to pick photos of fall color and not the amazing orange cliffs dripping with desert varnish. I took 999 photos! The country reduces a sane person into a clicking/walking idiot.

wantonamara.....I found it thanks... fascinating....wild looking country... glad you had a great time...

"The country reduces a sane person into a clicking/walking idiot." Off topic, but I will heartily agree with that, though in my case it's been a clicking/paddling idiot - we have paddled the Green 3x in August and September and it's stunning. If you ever have an opportunity, it's well worth the time and the Green is pretty much flat water. This is almost to the confluence. (I did a bit of botanizing, but almost all the photos are of rocks and water . . . 2 of the group are geologists, so there's a strong bias towards rocks.)

Wow, excellent pictures!

This year I have been in no hurry to cut anything back and have enjoyed watching the process of things as they die back. The custom hereabouts is to cut everything down to a nondescript mound as soon as it shows any change in response to the weather. "Beautiful" is not the knee jerk response to my garden in its various stages of death and yet after studying it, I really think it is.