It always amazes me that despite the fact that we have fairly wild winds in Fife, Japanese Maples stand up to them. Almost all the other deciduous trees in my garden are bare now, including the rowan and liquidamber but all of my acers, or Japanese Maples if you prefer are still quite well clothed and dazzling with colour.
The photo above is of the same acer but a slightly different angle so you can see a bit of my blue cedar (cedrus atlantica glauca). The only problem that I’ve had with this maple is that it has grown so vigorously that a large branch in the middle of it just broke from the weight of all the leaves on it, no wind involved in the damage that time.
This wonderful Japanese Maple is probably the most common one, Acer atropurpureum. At this time of the year the colour is at its most intense but I don’t think I would call it purple as its Latin name describes it. It’s my oldest Maple and I think it’s beginning to weaken but it’s still hanging on, which is more than I can say for one which was growing nearby and survived last winter fine only to give up and die off just after all its leaves unfurled in the spring.
The photo above is of the ornamental quince and as you can see it has a fair few fruits still hanging on it. I’ve never done anything with the quince, mainly because that great but now sadly dead garden writer Christopher Lloyd said that they are tasteless and not worth harvesting. But recently I read an article which said that the ornamental quince fruits are lovely made into a jam, I think I’ll have a go at it.
