Around our (Maryland) Yard in November 2013
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The November highlights in our yard are seed pods and leaves. Last year the blazing stars were very popular with gold finches but the birds have not found them yet this year.
The onion flowers have ripened and the seeds rattle in the pods - spilling into the garden.
The cone flower petals have dried and fallen away leaving the spikey seeds. They’ll be more of them next year. (Although the zinnias will be some competition…I put the zinnia stalks I cut from the pots on the deck into the same garden area and their seed pods were quite numerous too.)
The seeds from the tulip poplar are also flying everywhere. They tend to get caught at the edges of our driveway and the corners of the deck.
The seed pods are interesting in structure….the colors in the yard come from the leaves. The green chlorophyll dies first and the pigments in the leaves show through.
I love the sequence of colors in the sycamore leaves in the slide show below.
The maple behind our house was one of the last in the neighborhood to change colors…but it turned its usual glorious red. I enjoy the color on the tree and then as a mass of leaves on the grass. That tree necessitates the most concentrated raking of the season because the leaves all fall at once and are too heavy for the wind to blow them away.
The oak tree often seems to go from green to brown but this year the leaves have displayed more color variety. Each leaf has a unique pattern of rust, yellow, and green.
