Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a retail nursery located in Bryn Mawr, PA, specializing in showy, colorful, and unusual plants for shade. The only plants that we ship are snowdrops and miniature hostas. For catalogues and announcements of events, please send your full name, location, and phone number (for back up use only) to carolyn@carolynsshadegardens.com. Click here to get to the home page of our website for catalogues and information about our nursery and to subscribe to our blog.
The dramatic fall color of red maples has been replaced with the more subtle color of American beech. All the photos in this post were taken in and around Cliff Island, Maine, US, located off the coast of Portland in Casco Bay.
I have gotten a lot of comments in person and on line about how much everyone has enjoyed my posts from Maine. To read my post The Maine Coast and see photos in summer, click here. I was there again at the end of October so I thought I would show you the coast at a very different time of year.
The bay is empty of boats.
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The mooring buoys are stacked on the shore.
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The summer cottages are closed.
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This is the house where the movie The Whales of August with Betty Davis, Lillian Gish, and Vincent Price was filmed.
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The ocean loses its benign summer look.
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The cliffs for which Cliff Island was named.
The landscape of Cliff Island changes too. Gone are the wildflowers blooming everywhere and even the colorful leaves on the deciduous trees. The palette narrows to the blue sky, gray fog, green conifers, brown grasses, white bark, red berries. Everything is more subtle yet every bit as beautiful.
Cattails and winterberry holly
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winterberry holly
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The paper birches glow against the clear blue sky.
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In the fall, I am able to focus on the big picture. And I have found that the larger landscape contains a design element that comes to the forefront in the stark vistas of fall. No dotter of individual plants here and there, nature is the queen of massing. She uses broad bands of color to achieve spectacular results. I try to imitate this in my garden in Pennsylvania by planting in large swathes and allowing vigorous plants to self-sow. Of course, the results aren’t as spectacular as this….
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I am truly blessed to have access to this gorgeous native landscape. I am glad I can share it with you on my blog. This post was supposed to be up in time to wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving so it will have to be belated.
Carolyn
Nursery Happenings: Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is done for the fall. Thanks for a great year. See you in spring 2013.
If you are within visiting distance and would like to receive catalogues and information about customer events, please send your full name and phone number to carolynsshadegardens@verizon.net. Subscribing to my blog does not sign you up to receive this information.
Facebook: Carolyn’s Shade Gardens has a Facebook page where I post single photos, garden tips, and other information that doesn’t fit into a blog post. You can look at my Facebook page here or click the Like button on my right sidebar here.
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CAROLYN'S SHADE GARDENS 