This isn't fall color, it's spring color in late summer....early fall

This Corylopsis is one of the many plants that are pushing new growth in response to three weeks of rain following a hot dry summer. This morning I actually noticed flowers on the Styrax obassia in my back garden (in Adelphi). I've never seen that before. Ever.

Fall has finally arrived here. Last night the temperature fell to 45F here. That's 13 degrees above freezing, not the 19F of International Falls, but nice and cool. Wow. It's supposed to stay at least seasonably cool for the next couple of weeks and beyond that....well, we ought to be safely landed in fall.

I try not to be a plant snob but I don't know.....

Maybe it's not so much plant snobbery as "familiarity breeding contempt". If I'd never seen liriope before and saw this stand flowering in the Japanese Woodland, I'm pretty sure I'd feel like I'd really stumbled on something special. The problem is that I have seen acres of liriope and I guess I'm just jaded. It is nicer though, here amongst mixed plantings in an open woodland, than it is in a row in the sun between turf and a concrete sidewalk.