I took lots of photos of these trees at a garden centre in Wales. Small and perfectly formed, their colours seem to glow against the dull grey sky. A shaft of sunlight makes the colours explode. Glorious and wonderful.

A lot of the leaves are palmate, meaning hand shaped. The leaves are strongly divided into thinner and thinner strips of crimson red or deep yellow at this time of year. We have an acer in our garden but it always seems to have a white sheen to it. I think it is in the wrong place next to a bigger tree which is robbing it of moisture. I sometimes water it to try and help. It changes to a very dark deep red in autumn and its leaves are less indented, more maple like. With the sun shining through them this morning they look bronze or copper coloured.