
This small maple burned brightly when caught in the early morning sunlight, but as you can see all of the trees behind it were bare, and that’s the way it looks in many places now. Will this be the last fall color post? Normally I would say most definitely but I can’t say this year because it seems to go on and on.

This is what I saw on a back road recently. These are mostly beech with a few maples here and there. It was a beautiful drive.

Here was a lone beech also looking very beautiful, I thought.

This is a forest scene I drove past at first but then I had to turn around and go back. Mostly oak with a few beeches I think, with the tallest evergreens white pines.

This was one of the most colorful native maple leaved viburnums that I’ve seen. This is a great shrub for a woodland garden because they can take quite a lot of shade, and then just look what they do in the fall.

I love the soft, quiet color of these ginkgo leaves. Fossils of Ginkgo leaves have been discovered that date back more than 200 million years.

A red maple was beautifully orange.

In this closer shot of a red maple you can see how the leaves that are shaded by other leaves are yellow, while the leaves in full sun are orange. This is the first year I’ve noticed that some leaves are darker in full sun. It must have something to do with either the way or the timing of how the chlorophyll leaves them. Does it disappear quicker in shade?

I’ve seen the same thing in blueberries but this one was beautifully red.

Forsythias can be beautiful in the fall, with mostly reds and purples showing.

Another ornamental shrub, called Fothergilla or witch alder, is also beautiful in the fall. The bottlebrush like flowers in late spring are also very pretty. It’s a shrub that really is underused in gardens.

Oaks and beeches go so well together.

Here is an oak that shows that same light and dark shading caused by sun and shade.

I hope you can stand more beech trees. I can’t get enough of them.

The sumacs have also been beautiful this year. I’ve seen lots of vibrant reds everywhere.

These sumacs were shiny due to a rain storm but they were also very red.

For those who have never seen one, this is what the leaves of the ornamental locust called sunburst locust look like in the fall. Sunburst is an appropriate name.

Though there was sunshine there was also frost at the Ashuelot River in Swanzey.

But with a wider view you couldn’t tell that it was frosty at all. I saw that the oaks were still showing a lot of color.

Here is the same view in the rain. It was more of a drizzle, actually.

I went to the river specifically to see the burning bushes that grow in the forest there. They’re showing good color this year and don’t seem to be in any hurry to shed their leaves. I know that they’re terribly invasive and all the reasons for not having them here are good ones, but you can’t deny their beauty in a setting like this.

They look kind of magenta to me. Since they grow in the shade they never seem to achieve what I’d call red.

Slowly over time their leaves lighten until they’re a very pale pink–almost white, and once they’ve lost all their color they’ll drop. This year they’ve held on quite nicely but I’ve seen years when every leaf dropped over night.

Here is a closer look at the colors of the “wild” burning bushes. When you’re surrounded by them in a forest it’s almost like floating on a pink cloud.

Any time I get the chance to end a post in November with a flower, I’ll take it. The witch hazels bloomed beautifully this year.
I watched the surrounding landscape with great curiosity, and I wanted to discover the words that could describe all its unspoiled beauty. ~Daniel J. Rice
Thanks for coming by.