Fall is the season of complimentary colors starting with the fields of yellow goldenrod bumping up against the asters. Red maple leaves strewn across freshly mowed green lawns. The orange silhouettes of sugar maples puncture the cerulean blue sky. This is a vibrant season, a palette worthy of an expressionist painter! The crab-apple trees which produced beautiful blossom in the spring are now veiled in bright red apples. The birch trees are a glowing chrome yellow. The watercress which has come back to life with the cool autumn temperatures makes a nice emerald necklace around the pond’s edge. It’s enough to make you giddy!
Autumn
Pond view
Emerald necklace of watercress around pond’s edge- Delicious!
Wild asters
Donald Wyman crabapples
Sumac- Tiger Eyes(yellow shrub) & Cosmos
Rooting for Ideas 
Occasionally I sense a hint of jealousy in Don’s springtime posts as he describes the later arrival of color in his upstate garden – but today I sense a little giddiness as the backdrop at Old Totem Farm has burst into color while those of us to the south are waiting for the leaves to turn.
BEAUTIFUL! BEAUTIFUL! I just planted Colchicum (as per your previous post). But I had Colchicum over the last 3-4 years, and I have planted numerous other bulbs through the last 5 years in my Andes village garden. But, I have had an increasing number of chipmonks, voles, and even a ground hog, which, I think, are eating the bulbs and even the roots of new plantings. Something chewed all the leaves off the Yucca I planted in 2010! I recently planted some Echinecea in buried plastic pots with the bottom cut out…but I don’t want to plant every bulb in a plastic pot! The voles make runways in the dormant grass under the snow in winter, straight from my compost pile into my perennial border! Do you have any other advice, tricks, suggestions on how to protect my bulbs and other plants from the critters? I can’t have a dog…I could stop having a compost pile near my house…but I don’t have much other place to put it.
Thanks for your beautiful posts.
Hi Marlys,
The chipmunks mostly eat the sunflower seed I put out for the birds. Ground hogs eating roots of plants and maybe the bulbs is a possibility. (Got a friend with a gun?) Most bulbs are not tasty to squirrels, chipmunks, etc. The only bulbs I planted that have not come back were crocus and some dwarf iris- which I do believe the red squirrels got!
Bulbs that are not touched in my garden: Daffodils, Tulips, Grape Hyacinths, Scillas, Alliums, Camassia, Triteleia and Puschkinia. I don’t believe in putting bulbs in cages., I would rather pick the right bulb. Most of the bulbs except tulips will naturalize ( increase in numbers) – so I would stick to those. Make sure all bulbs are planted 3 times their depth of the bulb. I sometimes plant a little deeper because we are prone to frost heave here in the northeast. Also bulbs are more likely to not come back from being planted in poorly drained soil than by critters!
I was a maniac again this year and have just planted about 4000 bubs. Needless to say I have a sore elbow and shoulder!