Perfect fall flowering shrub – but it doesn’t exist yet!
Dan Hinkley's garden at Windcliff

Surprising bicolored vine

As the fall color fades, with only the Japanese maples that featured in the snow still at their peak, a twining vine galloping up a birch tree caught my attention.

Celastrus scandens with bicolored fall foliage. Image:©GardenPhotos.com With the birch leaves long gone, its fresh green foliage amongst the bare twigs caught my eye but now, as its foliage is starting to turn, it’s even more striking. Having been evenly green all season, many (but not quite all) of the leaves are green on one side and yellow on the other. Sharply divided by the midrib of the leaf, the two colours show up brightly side by side.

I didn’t notice any flowers or fruits on this vine earlier in the season - in fact I didn’t really pay it much attention at all until now – but I wonder if it’s the American bittersweet, Celastrus scandens. This is a vine that grows in this area – although at a slightly lower altitude so its leaves have dropped - and a bird could easily have dropped a seed.

I’ll be keeping a closer watch on it next season.

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