One of the greatest delights of this autumn is that we have some wonderful colours appearing in the garden.  It makes such a contrast to the evergreen of the native bush.

Although our trees are mere babies they have done well to establish themselves in the pretty dry conditions they’ve been forced into since being planted.   Now they are giving us a special display that really cheers me up as the bitter wind of the southerly blows right now.

Just look at the colour contrasts here.

Here’s a few close ups.

This is a Quercus Coccinea or scarlet oak.  It’s going to go redder than this and if this touch of read is anything to go by it’s going to bring a real splash of colour.

Here is Liquidambar Styraciflua Worpleston.  Lots of red here.

And finally the Acer Saccharum.

There are some other trees that aren’t fairing as well.  They’ve been under attack from the local bunnies.  Just see these two.

The one on the right isn’t doing too badly.

The one on the left has been badly munched!

So we’ve resorted to bunny barriers again.

No barrier needed on this other deciduous tree that whilst not as flame red as the others is delivering it’s own autumn charm.

This is not quite the autumnal feast that you get in New England. There are places in New Zealand that are renown for their autumn blush – Lake Wanaka in the south island.  There is a Festival of Colour at the end of April.

Wanaka was a place that MT and I visited about 5 years ago and was influential in our decision to move to New Zealand.  It’s a wildly beautiful place but it’s popularity has grown and grown over recent years with property prices soaring.

Maybe when we win the lotto we’ll built ourselves a straw bale house down there.  There is however more likelihood that our own tress will have grown to deliver us our own autumn dash of colour right here in Kaitoke.

I can be happy with that!