Who was it that wanted only white flowers in his or her garden? Well, well. But in the sulky weather of our autumn, we can do with all the colour we can get. The full autumn concert of reds and oranges and yellows hasn't come into play yet. Things like sumac in neighbouring gardens are indeed an outstanding burnt orange. Fine for colour but messy with their suckers covering the lawn, if you're not ruthless.
A touch of frost is needed to bring out the best in the bigger trees. Even those great performers, the American red oaks, are slow in this eastern part of the country. Only a few of them have begun to turn. Ash can usually be counted on to go into its lovely light yellow at this time - a good complementary colour to the reds - but few so far have been seen to move. Some limes are touched, but no more, with brown, but birches, of course, turned some time ago and many have lost most of their leaves.
Beech? The smaller ones show a bit of orange, but mostly they are taking their time. A friend says he has, for the first time in years, got well-filled beech nuts. As for the pedunculate oaks, their leaves are as shiny green as ever. Horse chestnut, you may say, has been on the go for some time. You can have it.
The bush that is planted almost entirely for its autumn pyro-technics remains resolutely green - the liquidambar. And likewise the amelancher. The most encouraging of all is the dogwood, a hedge of which (not on the roadside) took a great leap to something like eight feet this year. In all its twenty years it has been cut back heavily to three or four feet in April, and it has performed as green hedge along the drive and, in autumn, as the most colourful show of them all. For it turns not one colour but, progressively, about six: yellow to deep orange and variations in between; to red of various shades, then to purple and to plum, or almost black.
This is a fine large leaf, with red stem. For a month or so it is a delight, far outperforming, some think, even the best of the American oaks. The latter may, indeed, need a sharp frost to get the best out of them, to bring them up to full scarlet. If there is no frost they turn a pleasant, but not startling, orangey red.
In some ways, the reddest corner of the few acres concerned turns out, for the present, to be a hawthorn bush at a windy corner, its leaves torn away, but its huge crop of brilliant haws can be seen from a long distance away.