Of Color And Curb Appeal

Even though the brilliant colors of autumn have faded and fallen to the ground, there is still plenty to look at to remind us of the time of year.  I took my camera through the neighborhoods from Berkeley Park to Westcott Street and took some shots.   I hope you enjoy the textures, colors and whimsy as I did.

*******************************************************************

This Halloween display shows what you can create with basic basement shelving, some pumpkins and a lot of cutting.  I haven’t seen this at night but the extension cords running down the back imply these charming ghouls shine brightly in the dark.  The flag adds a soft touch.  Check it out on Westcott Street before it all goes away.

We’re running out of degrees warm enough to cure paint so these guys are tending quickly to the prep work on this house on Allen Street.  The scraped off paint and wood create a textured effect I found appealing.  Allen is one of Syracuse’s most charming streets and it gets better all the time as people buy the Queen Annes and Four-Squares and fix them up.  Take a drive to Allen Street, park the car walk it.  Giant trees survive on Allen and give us a glimpse of what our entire city looked like when the Elms formed a tall bower over every street before Dutch Elm disease wiped out all the elms in the 1960s.

When they say “they don’t make ‘em like this anymore”, they’re talking about this place on Cambridge Street.  This modest little ranch has extraordinary detail in the windows on the front.  Every one of those panes of glass; rectangles, squares and diamonds, were all custom cut to fit into the wooden frames and the owners are to be commended for keeping them this way.   It’s expensive to maintain the paint and wood.  The glass cracks occasionally and needs to be replaced.  Many homeowners don’t bother anymore and just stick in vinyl replacement windows with “panes” of plastic that snap in to look like individual pieces of glass but end up looking no better than tape.  Nice touch that the paint scheme matches the bark on the tree!

This novel paint combination of brown with teal gets a spark of color with the chartreuse leaves hanging onto the tree in the front yard.

This front yard, postage stamp in size, has autumn color in the form of political campaign signs.  This house and the brown one are on Harvard Place.

Much of the colorful foliage in our region has gone away, except this smoke tree on Dorset Street which sets the block on fire.  What a beauty.

Ornamental grasses hold marvelous pattern and play, especially at this time of year when they send up plumes of seed.

______________________________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

When Black-eyed Susans drop their yellow petals, all that remain are the black eyes.  This cluster planted on the tree-belt on Berkeley Drive provide velvety contrast to the sidewalk beside them.

For those desiring something unusual on the porch, there are heirloom pumpkins with variations in color and striping.  These nestle beautifully among hardy mums on Berkeley Drive.

Tagged as: Autumn, photographs