A Carpet of Gold

Almost all the leaves are off the maple. It happened differently this year. All week long, night and day they drifted softly into place, in layers, to cover the ground below like a carpet of gold.

In the evening ,in the dark, the pale ghostly shapes have floated silently past the windows.

No breeze disturbed their fall.

The maple next door, not twenty feet distant ended the season differently. A third turned strawberry pink in August, gradually deepened to red then russett and finally dark brown.
The rest of the leaves went from green to dark brown and many still remain on the branches.

Gardens have been different this summer. I noticed last time I was out on my scooter, dahlias were exceptionally beautiful. The variety of shapes and colours in the dahlia family are always spectacular. But mostly, in Canada they do not reach full majesty in their height, size and shape of blooms.

Except this year. I came home in wonderment. Then I realised. We had a wet cool summer.

It was an English summer.

We had legendary English gardens. The more modest snap-dragon is still producing colourful flowers and they have re-seeded themselves from the previous summer three times now.

So winter may well have had a part to play.