[Edited by wcutler - I have copied this from the Virtual Garden Tour thread, and I have removed the first sentence referring to a previous posting. I thought these two photos posted in that thread would be good headliners for a new thread featuring fall colours - why should the Maples folks have all the fun! If you came here looking for Maples autumn colours, they're still at Autumn colors 2020 - Maples]. Enkianthus campanulatus...You wouldn't think this was the same plant,yellow last year,bright red this year. E.chinensis yet to turn,wonder what colour that'll be? Cercis Cinensis,are there many trees that flower on the same wood each year?
Very heavy skies this morning and although my flash went off when taking this photo of my Ginko biloba, I thought why not post it, as it maybe the last time with the wind and rain on it's way..
Here are a few Fall colors from my gardens... Staghorn sumac Cinnamon vine Engleman ivy Bitter orange
We had some big, black clouds moving in so I couldn't resist snapping some photos of my staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina) and pink dogwood (Cornus florida 'Rubra') against the sky...
Out for a morning walk and came across these three. Two largest are Quercus robur and Acer Rubrum, not sure about the smallest, as didn't get close enough to ID. But the colours were lovely.
From a walk in the West End today - I'm almost totally certain this is Aronia melanocarpa, but before tasting it, I squeezed one of the fruits to confirm that it would bleed purple all over me, and it just oozed a kind of colourless liquid after quite a bit of squeezing, so I didn't taste it after all. I don't know what's up with that. Could this really be something else? Or maybe the purple comes just from the skins. I defnitely remember several years ago having purple fingers from tasting a few at UBCBG. I wouldn't know this plant at all if I had not seen it there. It helps to like yellow around here to appreciate the non-maple world in the fall. The city's database says this is Tilia x euchlora, common name Caucasian Linden or Caucasian Lime. These street trees run for a few blocks. The city has planted Cercis canadensis along most of Chilco Street. There is not a boulevard on the west side of the street, so they have planted them on the private properties. These three Ginkgo biloba are yellowing up at different rates. I wonder if they're the cultivar 'Autumn Gold'. Here is a young planting of Virginia Creeper - Parthenocissus quinquefolia, making an artistic pattern on the wall. The vine covering the Sylvia Hotel is often called Virginia Creeper, but it's Boston Ivy, Parthenocissus tricuspidata, simple leaves, not compound. Here's a pumpkin tree.
An Autumn walk along the River Itchen this morning, with a European Hornbeam canopy. A couple of ducks thinking the water is a bit cold now to venture in. Followed by a stroll in Otterbourne woods with the Bracken a lovely bronze colour now and the ever increasing moss on dead trees. Finally the village green also gave lots of colours with Acer saccharum Sugar maple. All in all a very pleasant walk.
These are mostly street trees. I'm making an attempt to get away from yellow here. I posted Cercis canadensis above (posting #7) with yellow leaves. Here is one with reddish leaves. A few of the Aralia elata are turning yellow. This is a private planting. But this one at the community centre (older, I think) has turned more red. There is a lot of colour variation also on the Liquidambar styraciflua trees, even on the same tree. This large one on the intersection island has yellow leaves low and more red ones up top. On the boulevard across the street, this younger cultivar is much more red. It's not listed on the city's database, but a block away they list 'Worplesdon', so maybe that's what they're planting on this street. Outside my building is one that is coloured more like the one in the traffic circle; it's listed as 'Worplesdon'. Here is a block of Quercus rubra. I'm slipping back to yellow now - Sorbus alnifolia, catty-cornered from me. And Fraxinus excelsior, with one of the purple-leafed plums that look like autumn for half a year, and the oaks posted above.
Since, it's yours, I guess you get to leave the fruits on until after the first frost? What do you do with them?
The fruit will be harvested once they have bletted - rotted - and when ripe (or should I say rotted) the fruit tastes like applesauce....I kid you not. As there are not many fruit we will just enjoy them as is.
I know you're not kidding. One year, I picked one small medlar fruit from a street tree and put it in the freezer, then split it a few months later with four people. So it was a very teeny taste, but it was applesauce-like. Here's another fruit that's like applesauce. This was at Dart's Hill Garden, Cornus kousa var. chinensis Milky Way Group. The Vancouver Trees App - UBC Botanical Garden says for Cornus kousa: But the texture and taste of the really dark ones we tried were just like applesauce. I even had a second one. I didn't eat the skins.
The weather was nice so I thought I'd take a last couple of photos of my staghorn sumac - Rhus typhina - before the leaves drop...
I've had a busy day in the garden due to damage from neighbours flying fence panels. Buy I couldn't not post a photo of my Cottoneaster that was looking pretty to try and cheer me up.
Trout Lake, John Hendry Park (part 1) We (my husband, myself and the dog) went to Trout Lake to enjoy the colors. I wanted to go before the leaves had all dropped and today's weather was perfect. My husband was in charge of the dog while I (and several dozen other people) wandered around with cameras taking photos. There were so many gorgeous views and colors, I'm just going to have to post them in sections...
@pmurphy if the next section you post P are as good as the first then we are all in for another treat from Trout Lake !!!
Let's see if I can organize this. I'll start with Liriodendron tulipifera, along False Creek. These are in a group of I forget, 20 or so trees, some of which are Liriodendron chinense. I worked really hard to tell which were which one year; if I posted all that, I can't find it, but in the end, I realized that the leafbacks on L. chinense were, if not correctly called sericeous, then very close, silky smooth. I took a sample leaf of each in to Douglas Justice that year, ID'd on the basis of the flowers, and he easily was able to feel which was which. I don't remember now which of these trees were which, but I'm pretty sure this one is L chinense. I'm not certain, though, whether the yellow vs. green breakdown splits here exactly by species. L. tulipifera is in the background. In the West End is a block, now a pedestrian walk-through, of big old L. tulipifera. Here is one of the L. tulipifera, at the other end of the block, with Fraxinus angustifolia to the left of it. Moving on to Fraxinus angustifolia, I like this tree in the fall because I can recognize it even from a distance. I can almost say it's unmistakeable in the mottling of its colours, something I can hardly ever say about anything. This group is right downtown. The next day was still good weather, so I did the half-hour walk along False Creek to George Wainborn Park, where there is a grove of 30 or so F. angustifolia. Here is a photo of them from 2013. I recorded them with the cultivar name 'Raywood'. I don't know how I came up with that. Here is a single F. angustifolia along the English Bay seawall.
Vancouver is still such a beautiful city. I was born there and sometimes I miss living there. My grandmother lived in poverty raising 4 children (husband in 'The San" with TB) in a house on a 33-foot lot that is now worth well over a million dollars. I have a book called "Through Lion's Gate" published in 1969 by the Vancouver Real Estate Board that captures the Vancouver I remember and love - before it was 'discovered' by the rest of the world. As I recall, the fall colours in the mid-20th century were lovely but certainly not as diverse as they are now with so many varieties of introduced trees and shrubs planted over the decades. The thing I do remember is how the North Shore mountains were always so vivid - any day it wasn't raining, that is.
I don't know the book, but here's a page referring to it: Through Lions Gate - Vancouver Is Awesome I see that Daniel Izzard was a painter - is it a collection of his paintings?
The original book features beautiful photographs from around the City. It was probably motivated as a promotion to introduce prospective purchasers to consider buying in Vancouver. What a hard sell! :-) But, no, not a collection of paintings.
A lot of people think of Autumn colours as the deciduous trees, but how about the bronze of a Chamarsyparis pisifera Boulevard. It goes this colour every year amongst the fallen leaves of my maples in my garden.