Garden Photo of the Day

Celebrate Autumn With Beautiful Fruit and Flowers

A California garden rings in the season of abundance

Today’s photos come from Lizzy Cordova, who shares some beautiful images of autumn in her garden in North Orange County, California.

When autumn comes, suddenly it’s the garden’s second spring. In my Zone 9b–10 garden, autumn is wrought more in fruits than flowers. We haven’t had rain, but the garden has thrived. Whatever harvest the garden gives, it is generously shared with friends.

The angel’s trumpet (Brugmansia sp., Zones 8–11) towers over the trained ‘Pierre de Ronsard’ rose to the left of the arbor that blooms beautifully in clusters in the springtime. The pineapple sage (Salvia elegans, Zones 8–11), despite being headed back, shows off its red rocket blooms. From tiny cuttings, this plectranthus (Plectranthus neochilus ‘Mike’s Fuzzy Wuzzy’, Zones 9–11) with blue spike flowers just took off. On the right of the teak arbor, the favorite ‘Gold Flame’ honeysuckle (Lonicera × heckrottii ‘Gold Flame’, Zones 5–9) is making a comeback after it got butchered by house painters last year.

 

The darling dahlias strut their pompon blooms seemingly like concentric origamis. Read this to find the best dahlias for your garden.

 

The Cara Cara orange tree is promising a great harvest this fall. It’s not even transplanted into that glazed blue urn it was meant for.

 

Pomeloes will be ready for harvest by December. They’re literally bigger than my head!

 

The branches are weighed down with persimmon abundance, as they are every year. The harvest will be ready in two weeks.

 

A few of the blooms in the garden will make a delicate tussie-mussie.

 

This night-blooming jasmine (Cestrum nocturnum, Zones 9–11) perfumes the night air as I meander around the garden, under the autumn moon. The starlike blooms close at daybreak.

 

This English tree rose ‘Shropshire Lad’ despises being pruned. It took off and landed atop the side-porch lantern!

GPOD fans, our submissions always drop off a little in the fall and winter, so if you’ve thought about submitting but never have, now is the time! And just because it is fall doesn’t mean you need to submit photos of your fall garden. It is always fun to look back at the garden as it was earlier in the year.

 

Have a garden you’d like to share?

 

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To submit, send 5-10 photos to [email protected] along with some information about the plants in the pictures and where you took the photos. We’d love to hear where you are located, how long you’ve been gardening, successes you are proud of, failures you learned from, hopes for the future, favorite plants, or funny stories from your garden.

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Comments

  1. User avater
    meander_michaele 10/15/2018

    Hi, Lizzy, your photos are truly delightful and certainly show the truth in your observation that " When autumn comes, suddenly it’s the garden’s second spring. "
    Your final picture of the rose branch making its way to hug the lantern is so charming...it elicited a soft smile in recognition of how sometimes we gardeners should let plants do their thing.

  2. User avater
    treasuresmom 10/15/2018

    Love your little tussie-mussie.

  3. Sunshine111 10/15/2018

    It’s all so lovely! I’m really envious of all of your fruit and your very happy Brugmansia ?

  4. annek 10/15/2018

    Oh my, what a delightful garden! I lingered over every photo and marveled at the exquisite colors, fruit size and charming composition. Like meander, I especially liked the enchanting Shropshore Lad curling around the sconce. Just wow!

  5. btucker9675 10/15/2018

    The angels trumpet is so gorgeous - what a lovely garden you have!

  6. Musette1 10/15/2018

    I could say I don't envy you your gorgeous Zone 9b-10 climate - but I would be lying like a lima bean! lol! Nevertheless, this lying lima loves viewing all this abundance, especially as we are in the midst of a very early cold snap here! Thank you so much for sharing!

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