31st October. Halloween.

We go out on our motorcycle today and I was astonished at how many home were draped with cobweb and skeletons and autumn pumpkin . When I was a child , Halloween with all its accompanying cheapness and beggary for sweeties had not yet been imported from America . Instead we had Bonfire Night on the fifth November which was called Guy Fawkes Night and was always celebrated on the right mean solar day ; it never happened on the near Saturday or any other random day . On Halloween we were officious piddle huge bonfires and an simulacrum of the would- be Catholic incendiarist , Guy Fawkes who would be sting on the big Nox . Instead of begging for sweets , small fry used to beg for a centime for their homemade guy which they proudly displayed . Where I come from in the due north , the night before Bonfire Night was Mischief Night where child would cocker in a piddling light vandalism such as stealing wood from each others ’ bonfires or hang gate from lamppost . There were few great public firework display , everyone had their own private bonfire political party and ate baked potatoes and bonfire toffee . Children were free to set fire to their body parts with romish candela , rocket and bangers such as Jumping Jacks which sometimes jumped into the firework boxwood and do off the whole lot . Whizzing Catherine wheels often scat from their moorings to flee through the crowd to bestow a few more random injuries . I wonder how many injury there were each year . Now of course , we no longer sting image of citizenry and firework display are carefully controlled . But instead we have to put up with Halloween with its plastic skeletons and child begging for sweets whilst their parent levitate in the background In the UK , 8 billion pumpkins were corrupt and then binned afterwards last year . It seems an awful waste . So this house is a pumpkin and skeleton - spare zone . Instead , get ’s go into the garden and see what colours there are in leave-taking and fruit as we go into wintertime .

First some endearing berries . MyCallicarpais look good this year , it is the first sentence that it has cut across itself in lush purple berries .

Callicarpa bodineiri

Callicarpa bodineiri

The blackened -stemmedCornus alba‘Kessellringii ’ has berries like bunches of eyeballs .

Cornus alba‘Kesselringii ’

I had a terrible orchard apple tree harvest time this year and that includes my crab apple . ButMalus‘Princeton Cardinal ’ has n’t let me down .

Callicarpa bodineiri

Malus‘Princeton Cardinal ’

I have a rare berberis which I grow for its awful berries and although it is intersex it has been disappointing up until this year . But now I think why I try it out . It is calledBerberis georgii .

Berberis georgii

Callicarpa bodineiri

This twelvemonth is an amazing fungus kingdom class perhaps because of all the rainfall we have had . I ’ll draw a veil over all the honey fungus toadstools which cropped up everywhere instilling threat and paranoia in me . But here are some of the others .

Amanita muscaria . Fly Agaric .

Macrolepiota procera . Parasol Mushroom .

Cornus alba‘Kesselringii’

Acers are glorious in Autumn . I ca n’t retrieve the name of this one .

Acer

We have had several frost but so far the dahlias are still standing and I am still gathering armfuls of them . This isDahliaCornel Bronze ’ next the the gloriousAcer osakazuki .

Malus‘Princeton Cardinal’

Acer osakazuki

But rent ’s not look at flowers now , here are more endearing folio . The Forest Pansy is gorgeous all summer long and she goes out in a blaze of colour .

genus Cercis canadensis

Berberis georgii

I growCornus alba‘Sibirica ’ for the wintertime stems which are ruby-red but the leaves look good good in Autumn too .

Here is the best of several Euonymus which I grew from illicit seeds so I do n’t deserve to have something so beautiful .

Euonymus

Amanita muscaria.Fly Agaric.

By this time of the yearRicinus communishas developed huge shiny leaf but I am always a small flighty growing it as it is such a deadly poison .

genus Ricinus communis

I have quite a few hag hazelnut tree and some of them colour up beautifully in the Autumn .

Macrolepiota procera. Parasol Mushroom.

genus Hamamelis

And talking about witches , it may be Halloween but I am safe from them here . The Brobdingnagian Elizabethan hearth in my star sign were added in the center of the sixteenth 100 and each bressumer beam has an abundance of apotropaic fool which were marks made in the wood to halt witches come down the chimney . There are also some by the doorway and some of the windows . So that ’s alright , no witches can get in here .

Apotropaic grade in beam over chimney

Thank you to lovely Beatrice for the spooky picture at the top of this post .

37 Responses to31st October. Halloween.

I love this time : “ So this family is a Cucurbita pepo and skeleton - free geographical zone . ” It describes my menage as well , but much easily than I could . Somehow i could n’t bring myself to bribe any squash ( Cucurbita pepo ) I could n’t run through . I am hold back for the pomegranates and persimmons to mature to utilize them as ornamentation . Almost there .

Most people I know here either love or hate Halloween but I come down somewhere in the middle . I do wish to decorate with pumpkin vine ( which the squirrels often tunnel through in a individual night ) and skeleton in the cupboard but this year I have none of either as there ’s already a scary spate of contractor debris to navigate and I did n’t recollect I need to add to it , much less encourage tike to run an obstacle course to tap on our door . My current neighborhood seldom gets trick - or - negotiator but I unremarkably keep a little candy on hand , just in case . This year I ignore to do even that . Our plague of fires is scary as it is – and I ’m very glad we do n’t do bonfire or fireworks at the top of our fire risk season ! It ’s spoilt enough that fools shoot fireworks off on New Year ’s Day and Independence Day .

I do n’t like Hallowe’en either . I remember Bonfire Night with toffee Malus pumila and the rather random catherine wheels you mention . hold up the sparklers ( ensuring you were wearing gloves ) and writing with them was also a high spot … ( and making sure they were plunge in a bucket of water system afterwards , of course).You have some beautiful autumnal people of color in your garden . well wishesEllie

I ’m very sorry that the worst parts of our Halloween celebration have been imported into Britain and have overshadowed your own Guy Fawkes Night . My husband ( who is English ) remembers fondly his own puerility Bonfire Night celebration , and I regret that I ’ve never enter in one ( Some day I would also enjoy to see a Panto , but that ’s a unlike affair ) . I myself have an chemical attraction for the macabre , so I care the estimate of All Hallows Eve , but I do n’t really decorate . I do like seeing lilliputian shaver in costumes , but in our neighbourhood there are very few , so we do n’t put our Light Within on any more . joke - or - treating in reality seems to be waning in popularity passably here , I cerebrate , as many parent bring their kids to neighbourhood parties , rather than up and down the street .

Your Callicarpa does look very healthy ! Thanks for the background on Halloween and Guy Fawkes Night . It ’s always interesting to hear how traditions begin and continue and change .

Acer

31st October. Halloween.