Sizergh Gardens in October

Maples in SIzergh Castle rock-garden

Season and weather interact in an alchemy that always surprises.   We come to SIzergh Gardens on an October day when vegetation is drenched from yesterday's rain and now there are blue skies and the day grows warm.   It's a day of strong sunlight and deep shadows, warm enough to bask in the sun. 
In the rock-garden there's a splendid display of maples.   We often visit Sizergh Gardens and in autumn we make for a spot where we find shrubs of guelder rose and spindle, to see how they fare this year.

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In autumn, blustery winds and squalls can strip shrubs of leaves so they never show the rich reds of October.  And it's not every year that  fruit-bearing shrubs have  abundant crops of berries.   I follow the seasonal progress of spindle in the hope that the elements will work together to show the shrub  with lavish berries and colourful leaves.  In SIzergh Gardens there are several varieties of spindle and they're planted on a south-facing bank so they show in full sun on a bright morning.  Today, raindrops lingered on poisonous orange seeds peeping from bright pink capsules.  And lanceolate leaves showed ruby red and tints of purple against a blue sky.   
We saw them on a perfect day.  The previous day I'd admired the mellow leaves of a climbing hydrangea and twenty-four hours later the shrub was almost leafless.  These are moments of fleeting glory. 

 We know and love these spindle trees but close-by there's a splendid rowan thick with tiny pink berries.   We wonder how we haven't noticed it before. Perhaps we haven't been here at its optimum time of fruit-bearing.  A volunteer gardener goes to check its name and to tell us the variety.  The rowan is Sorbus vilmorinii.