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All the senses in a season

The Fall Foliage Festival celebrates autumn’s fading light with glowing colors, hands-on activities — and the sweet sugary scent of katsura trees.

If I say burnt caramel, ginger, brown sugar, and burgundy, you might think of a sticky cake or mulled wine. Fall, when nature marks the turning season with rich, burnished colors, is also a heady treat. Metaphor and season collide when you stand beneath the canopy of a katsura (Cercidiphyllum japonicum) whose heart-shaped leaves, simmering in shades of deep gold, pink, and orange-red, smell of burnt sugar.

The Fall Foliage Festival at the Rhododendron Species Botanical Garden (RSBG) runs October 16-17, 2021, 10am to 4pm, and admission to the garden is free that weekend. As the name suggests, springtime at RSBG is filled with colorful blossoms and fragrance as the garden’s collection of Rhododendron species—the world’s largest in a public garden—puts on a seasonal show. But that’s only the beginning of the Garden’s year-round performance when the 22-acre woodland is a stage set for seasonal color against a backdrop of inky evergreens.

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GROW in The Seattle Times