No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds! —
November!
— Thomas Hood
It's the beginning of the first full week of November in my Z5 garden in southern Wisconsin and that poem is all wrong this year. This morning it's 56°F as I am writing this at 8 a.m. Yesterday in the garden birds were flocking to the water bowl. The last stems of Aconitum (monkshood) and Chrysanthemum 'Sheffield' were still flowering despite some frosty nights.
There are colorful leaves on the ground and the roof but lots of green leaves still on ferns, assorted perennials and trees. Our Paperbark Maple hasn't even begun to turn color. Here's a sampling of what the garden looks like right now.
Hamamelis virginiana (Witch Haze) is in full bloom and has dropped its leaves so you can actually see the flowers.

Of course, it's not easy to see the flowers without a nice Yew hedge behind this shrub.

Dawn redwoods are deciduous. This one, 'Ogon', is a bright chartreuse all summer before it turns its needle-like foliage a gorgeous cinnamon. I love it when it's in the middle of that change-over and there are bright gold tips at the ends of many of the autumn toned branches.

I have three varieties of Hackonechloa in multiple locations in the garden. H. macra is shrinking up without ever putting out their inflorescence.

H. 'All Gold' has "flowered" like crazy.

I always wait for a few frosts to put an end to the Hostas. Once that happens it's easy to just pull the foliage off the plant rather than having to cut all those stems.

Hellebores, Geranium macrorrhizum, Vancouver and many ferns, like this Dryopteris crassirhizoma, are still bright green.

Winter lasts such a seemingly long time that I am not going to complain about this unusually lovely weather. A little rain would make it perfect.