Indoors and over a cup of tea I had a rummage on the web and turned up an excellent summary of what to think about and look for on GardenVisit.com (an entirely excellent site by the way, full of really good stuff and the best garden visit planner I have ever seen)
You can always tell when a crab apple is ripe. Pick one and bite it. If you scream it is not. But if your face just wrinkles up as if you were sucking a lemon, then it is probably about right…. Crab apples really are some of the bitterest fruit around.
I had this all ready written about 2 months ago (because it was going to be topical now) and then forgot it. Hopefully the warning will go unneeded (as opposed to unheeded).
The Autumn equinox passed almost unnoticed (apart from it being the nicest day of the "summer" so far). But the equinox in September is every bit as dodgy as the one in March. Remember poor old Julius Caesar and "beware the Ides of March"?
Uplighting is the most commonly used garden lighting technique, for shrub borders and trees especially. By uplighting trees, one exploits a unique opportunity to add vertical emphasis and drama in a garden lighting scheme. Trees with an open habit allow light to fully display the branch structure, while the contrast of colour between subjects can be emphasised. The light coloured bark of a silver birch, the coppery stems of Prunus serrula Tai-Haku, the golden fern-like foliage of Gleditsia triacanthos “Sunburst” or the subtle green and white striped bark of Acer pensylvanicum are all examples of good lighting subjects.