Fall Color, Finally

Photograph of purply-brown oakleaf hydrangea with dried flowers on it, and rather orangy serviceberry branches overlapping in front. — Our biggest color splash this fall is the purple oakleaf hydrangea, center. To the right, the serviceberry is more orange than its usual scarlet, and once again it colored up so late that it missed the New England aster bloom. The brown at the base of the oakleaf hydrangea is geranium, with lady’s mantle still untouched by frost underneath that.

My yard is recovering from both painters and “abnormally dry” conditions. A drought by any other name….is still abnormally dry. Fall has been relatively unexciting, colorwise, but the colors are brightening, finally.

The painters did a beautiful job on the house, and not too much damage to the plants surrounding the house. The plants should be fine by spring; they have endured both roofers and painters this year. Perhaps it is a good thing that a lot of plants went dormant by early August.