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RED ALERT!

© Barbara M. Martin

Please note: Thank you for visiting my Cottage Garden topic and reading my columns, published here from February 1997 through spring 2003! This Cottage Garden column was written by Barbara M. Martin and is Copyrighted by Barbara M. Martin. It may not be altered or copied or published elsewhere in whole or in part without specific permission from the author. I regret I am no longer actively editing or contributing to this suite101.com topic as of mid-2003. Happy Gardening!

Yesterday the Virginia Creeper in my back yard turned red. The mighty vine stretches grandly upward from the ground in a thick vertical cascade of crimson, a glorious first burst of pure scarlet saturated to the max, the red that screams "fall" from the treetops, literally. I love that color, even though it is the first truly undeniably red flush of fall.

A little earlier in the season, sometimes even in August just as we begin to notice the days shorten and the nights leave more dew, the Nyssa sylvatica outside my bedroom window will shed a leaf or maybe two in the same sort of surreal red. They sit brightly against the tired late summer dregs of lawn, almost as if to say "Okay, that's it...we surrender...it's time."

Time for fall, time for the bright hot colors of the foliage. Bright yellows from the walnuts, reds from the maples, russets and scarlets and hints of orange from every reach of the forest. Even the berries chip in, red on the invading barberry shrubs deep in the woods, red hugging tightly to the twigs of the native winterberries, and that diamond-dusting of red berries along the yew tips outside my dining room window.

Somehow red is what my eye craves right now. There are lovely goldenrods along the roadsides, accented with the dark silhouettes of teasel heads and the fresh silvery green of unripe milkweed pods; the tiny starry fall asters line the woods edge in pale and dusky lavender and brittle whites, the garden mums are bold in burgundy and golds. The grasses are blooming now with starbursts at their tips and the sedums are brilliant in near reds and pinks. Even the brilliant new beautyberry (Callicarpa) is garbed in glowing royal purple berries, branches bending beneath their weight.

But red is scarce right now; the dogwoods and aronias, the burning bushes and the Japanese maples haven't colored yet. And so we await the next round of autumn RED!

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