Some of the trees in Autumn

The English oak has some spectacular color this year.  This is a photo from today.

 This is a the English Oak on Nov. 3, ten days ago.. just starting to turn.  In some years these leaves hang on well into winter and just turn brown.  Hope this years colors last equally as long as the brown ones.

 This is the arbus unedo or strawberry tree.  The bees love the those little bell blossoms.  The humming birds feed on them too.  Its good to see that there is some food for them this late in the season.  The red berries are edible, apparently.  There are numerous opinions on that on the internet.  The birds should like them, too, but I have not seen the birds eating them.  The tree has a long period of bloom in the autumn, in my garden.

 This is the holly with lots of berries on it this year.  Nice variegated leaves on this one.  Many years ago, I rescued it from a plant nursery where it was not looking very good.  In the last few years it has been putting on a good show. 

 This is the pin oak and the Japanese cedar (Cryptomeria japonica), in the woodland garden.  You see the tops of the trees over the garage roof.  The Japanese cedar stays this reddish bronze color all winter and in the spring turns green again.  It is a big tree that is aging gracefully.  Its too bad that the needles sometimes dry out and hang onto the tree.  I brush them off on the lower branches, but the higher ones will have to take care of themselves.  I must do a photo study of this tree.  It likes acid soil, so perhaps I could under plant it with blue or white azaleas.  At the moment there is a shrub with white blossoms that have the fragrance of orange blossoms.  This little shrub is everygreen and looks good under the sweeping boughs of the cryptomeria.  I believe the lovely little shrub is a choisya.  In the spring and summer, this area has quite a lot of self seeded dames rocket, in purple and white. 

 This is a closer view of the pin oak leaves.  Very rich red color.  I moved a rhodo, in the same space as this tree.  I do not get back here often enough to water.   These two trees with their underplantings are across the woodland path from each other. 

This is a photo of the liquid amber tree in the front garden from November 3.  It has more color, now and has dropped some of the leaves.  It is the main show in the front garden, now.
Yesterday, I was out in the garden for a couple of hours and raked leaves off of the rock plants, thyme circle and other perennials.  I put the leaves on the grass path and mulch them with the mover.  I don't know where the leaves went, but I did not have much mulch in the mower bag.  There will be more leaves to fall, of course and more leaf mulch to make. 

With the clean up of the deer pasture across the street from us by the Saanich Parks department I have been haunting the Parks website to learn about the Urban Forest Stategy.    It is all very interesting and I enjoy following links to all kinds of good information.  One of the links led me to a place that sells wild flower seeds.  It is in Ontario.  The company has 3 or 4 kinds of Milkweed seed for sale.  I have some seed for milkweed that I hope to grow into enough food for monarch butterfly larvae.  Thanks for the seed, Dave.  My first ones have sprouted.  Planted them on November 3.  They are in plastic containers next to the light garden.  I have a few being stratified in the fridge, but I have the majority of them planted in pots that sit out on the garden.  I hope to see them in the spring in the natural order of growth.  I am happy to see that these plants are not banned in Canada.  I found no mention of them on such list in Saanich, particularly.  So, when my plants get leaves, I hope I can get some monarchs, and then hope that the monarchs are enticed to stay and lay eggs.  Well, that is next year's project.