A grand harvest entrance

When was the last time a display of gourds stopped you in your tracks? Each October, Tracey Fraser contends with a veritable pedestrian traffic jam outside her Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, home as soon as she sets out her annual exhibit. With its soft yellow facade and gingerbread detail, Tracey’s home is the perfect backdrop for the warm tones of autumn.

Some trick-or-treaters are drawn to the jack-o’-lantern-sized pumpkins, while others gravitate to the whimsical scarecrows, but everyone who comes in for a closer look is rewarded by the wide array of vivid details. The unexpected beauty of this collection of gourds and miniature pumpkins nestling among the bales of hay never fails to surprise: warty orange and yellow oddities, green and yellow vase-shaped squashes, emerald munchkins with white stripes. Multi-coloured cobs of ornamental corn are placed here and there for texture, and corn stalks provide extra height.

To bring in the jewel tones of the season, big bunches of potted mums dot the perimeter in wooden baskets reminiscent of those found in apple orchards. The showy clumps of garnet and white provide a poignant hit of neutrality among the rich tones, while orange blooms nestle among the pumpkins and yellow bunches mirror the changing leaves in the young trees that anchor the vignettes. Every view of this generous front yard reminds its audience that autumn’s harvest is a prosperous outpouring of the earth’s bounty, and a cele­bration for all who see it.