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Having been away from Westonbirt for much of autumn, I was keen to check out what colours nature is affording us at this point in time.

In the final week of our seed collecting expedition we collected under the expert guidance of Ron Lance, who has led us to places where our target species are.

So for most of the past week we have been travelling through the wilds of Missouri in search of Carya seed.

Yesterday we headed to the Shaw Nature Reserve, which is part of Missouri Botanic Garden. Here we met James Trager, Naturalist at the Shaw Nature Reserve, who joined us in our quest to find the hickory species which are found here.

Having arrived in Chicago on Monday afternoon, we spent a day at the marvellous Morton Arboretum in Lisle, Illinois on Tuesday where we utilised the herbarium before heading to the living collection.

Next week, Tree Team supervisor Rich Townsend, RBG Wakehurst Place arborist Jon Harmer and I are jetting off to the United States on a rather exciting mission.

Well, there is still plenty of spring colour to enjoy here at Westonbirt and the flowers will keep coming through the summer, though not in the abundance we are spoilt with in spring.

Looking good out in the arboretum today are over 15,000 trees, though perhaps some more obviously than others.

Among the many attributes of members of the Enkianthus genus are the bell-like flowers.

I have chosen to highlight this one this week as our largest, oldest specimen (close to Main Drive and Loop Walk in the Old Arboretum) is looking quite fine in bract right about now.

There is far too much excitement amongst the plants to attempt to mention it all here, so I shall stick to just the one today.

Among the numerous Rhododendron species and cultivars in flower here currently, are two 'firsts' for Westonbirt.

Amid the endless shades of green seen as fresh foliage emerges, are equally wonderful tones of pink, purple and red, as some of our trees put on a colour show equal to that of autumn.

Some of you will know that our Prunus sargentii on Broad Drive is looking rather good just at the moment. Photographs posted to Facebook last week illustrated this nicely I took a few more this morning confirming that this is still the case!...

There is so much to excite here at Westonbirt just now - far too much to mention them all here so I have chosen to highlight just a few of the Acer species along Broad drive, which are perhaps more subtle in their flowering beauty.