Fall's last gasp...

My favorite tree in our neighborhood - this thing is huge and amazing.

My neighbor's callicarpa, 'beautyberry', holds these brilliant purple berries all winter long.  Every time I see it I smile.

Now these red berries remind me Christmas is just around the corner....

More fall scenes from the NYBG and also my garden...

Whoops! I forgot to attach these two photos - see below for my post with descriptions!

Our fall colors have been so intense and bright

Some final fall foliage photos from the New York Botanical Garden and my house...it was 60 today but that first freeze is nipping at our heels...wanted to share these brilliant colors and textures of NY and Connecticut.

The not so welcome hum of all those leaf blowers

One sound I could do without at this time of year is the ever present hum (or roar is more like it) of the leaf blower.  Why do my neighbors (and most folks I know) feel the need to have a spotless, leaf-free lawn in the winter?  I guess they just don't realize that simply running over those mineral rich leaves and leaving them on their grass all winter is the best fertilizer they can give their beloved lawn's roots.  And then maybe they could forgo Home Depot and the annual spring fertilizer run and spend that time just enjoying their green lawn!  I was just reading a twitter post from a fellow Connecticut garden blogger, Garden Junkie at gardenjunkiesblog.com -- check her out for great ideas and advice, and saw a tweet about just this very problem, and it got me disgruntled and thinking.  We still have lots of educating to do before all of our green lawn lovers will be converted to organic principles.  In the meantime, I'll keep snatching those bags of leaves under the cover of darkness for my gardens...I love free fertilizer since my small Long Island Sound side garden is tree free!

An early designer of the garden "room"

I'm trying to write my last paper for my History of Landscape Design class that I am taking at the New York Botanical Garden, and I just came across an intriguing story about an 11th century landscape design featuring the currently fashionable "garden room".

The 11th century Japanese Tale of Genji tells how Prince Genji constructed gardens for his ladies -- one for each season.  Lady Murasaki had a spring garden, the summer garden was for the "Lady from the Village of Falling Flowers," the autumn garden for Lady Akikonomu, and the winter garden of pines and chrysanthemums for Lady Akashi.  (Source:  The Poetics of Gardens by the esteemed architects Charles W. Moore, William J. Mitchell and William Turnbull, Jr.)

Almost every "new" idea we have today had its origin in another time in our garden history past.  I love the idea of having a garden for each season.

Of course, I completely veered from what I should be reading about right now...Gertrude Jekyll's garden design theory and how I can apply it to a house of my choosing that has a design that is out of sync with its architecture.  Ok, I have to get focused!

Graphics project re-do

I got started on my final design project yesterday and was so proud of myself that I had a good start on it by the end of the day...and I had already finished my homework.  Major accomplishment.  But something was bugging me about the scale of my design, and I actually dreamt about it last night and came up with the answer.  Obsessed you say?  Definitely.  I figured out -- as I woke up -- that the reason my design was too big at 1/4" scale was I should have done it at 3/16ths...I only tried it at 1/8ths and 1/4ths, thinking those were my only options.  But in between those two is 3/16ths.  Duh.  So now I have to start over.  Ughhhh. I have to go back to Kinko's to enlarge my survey -- again -- and come home and re-trace the whole thing.  Another two or three hours of my life down the drain.  I know we all learn by making mistakes, but I could have lived just fine without this one.  I was looking forward to a Sunday off and a much needed break from that drafting table.  Maybe even watching my youngest play hockey and getting the last of my allium and daffodil bulbs in the ground before it freezes.  But I sent my son off to hockey with the neighbors and I'm stuck indoors all day again on yet another lovely Connecticut fall day....I know it will all be worth it in the end, but I'm really craving some good time digging in the dirt today.  Ok, I've gotta stop whining and head back to my friendly local Kinko's!

A meadow in Wilton, Connecticut on a clear, cool Fall afternoon at my daughter's xc meet