the last week of October and the first of fall's peak color

Today I had to walk a good bit on Duke's west campus. I made four trips to and from my car which I park on the far side of Sarah Duke Gardens and along the way I took about two dozen photographs. This week everyone will really notice the variety of trees, shrubs, and perennials in various stages of fall color all over the piedmont.

Left - fallen leaves from a Japanese cherry tree.
Below- a big leafed hydrangea starting to turn. Not pictured here are the dogwoods, redbuds, ginkgos, and Chinese pistaches which will be at their best over the course of this week. Be on the lookout. Our rakes and lawn mower-bags will be gathering much of this stuff too soon.