Suzie, the past two weeks I have traveled from Mena Ar. to Fayetteville Ar. There is not much color change. Around where I live (15 miles south of Ft. Smith) many of the colors are going from green to brown on the hillsides because it is so dry, the lower areas are for the most part green, But that wont last long if we dont get some rain.

Larry

Suzie,

I'm seeing what Larry describes....not much color change yet, and what little color change I'm seeing is a week or so later than normal for us.

The two main factors that contribute to the changing of leaf color in autumn are (a) the formation of an abscission layer in the leaf stems which cuts off the flow of water to the leaves, causing photosynthesis and the creation of chlorophyll to cease, and (b) the decrease in daylength. Still, both rainfall and temperatures have some effect on the leaves. I don't know what contributes to the forming of the abscission layer and whether the timing of that varies from year to year, but daylength is pretty predictable and doesn't vary much, decreasing at the same rate and same time every year.

We have our best and most vivid fall color when fall days are warm and sunny and fall nights are cool and crisp. As far as more long-term weather influences on leaf color, we have the best color when we have a warm wet spring, a summer with adequate moisture, and the kind of fall I described above with warm, sunny days and cool nights.

Our tree foliage here in general isn't looking very good. We had a foot of rain fall in September and the leaves on many trees have developed some fungal diseases with lots of browning and fungal spots on leaves. Normally our native persimmons here turn a lovely golden-orange and this year they're just a dull brown so far. The elms and willows usually turn yellow, and they are turning yellow now, but later than usual and maybe not as vivid as usual. Here in southern OK, our fall color doesn't really peak until November and I haven't seen anything that makes me think this year will be any different.

Of course, a sudden, very hard freeze can ruin the fall color change, so let's hope we don't have a very early, very hard freeze.

Dawn

Larry,
We're planning a trip to Beavers Bend in early November and usually the fall color is beautiful at that time. I know the southeast part of the state has been very dry, so it may be one of those green-to-brown years for that area, similar to what you described. But my fingers are crossed that there will be some nice color in early November.

Dawn,
We have two maples, one in the front and one in the back. The one in the front is already almost completely yellow, and this time last year it hadn't begun to turn yet. But the maple in the back really looks bad. The leaves on it turned from green to brown and most have blown off in the wind the last couple of days. The one in the back received mostly only rainfall in the way of water, but the one in the front did benefit from some lawn watering, as well as a (now repaired) leak in our water line. I hope the one in the back will survive. I watered it really well yesterday and will soak it really good again if we don't get some decent rain this next week. We have a few Bradford pears that are mostly green but beginning to show a few signs of red, and a couple of elms that are beginning to turn a little. Last year the Chinese pistache out around here were gorgeous, and I'm not seeing that this year. At least, not yet.

Suzie

Here in NE Norman...we've seen the change in just one day, today. I'm very close to Lake Thunderbird so we have LOTS of trees (Boomer- where are you???? Just chime in anytime you're ready! Impatience? Dorice? COME ON!!! Where are my peeps?? LOL!) Today after a trip into Edmond, we REALLY noticed a difference.

This part of Norman got an early frost the first part of this week. Before that everything was still green..but since, the Sumac have turned red, the Persimmons have turned red-orange and the hickory trees just flat dropped their leaves. Still watching the oaks.

Makes sence, after all...it is mid-October...almost.

And off topic - ie - "OT"...has anyone seen any hummers? I'm thinking it's time to take down my feeders. Saw one last weekend and that was the first in over a week, but nothing since. However, I still have several monarchs hanging around....and the bees are hitting the hummer feeders. Just hate to take any measures that are going to hurt my next gardening season.

Paula

Suzie, Hopefully the maple tree you think might have gotten too dry is able to pull through. Most trees can withstand fairly long dry spells once they're well-established, but I always watch young trees extra carefully their first three years in the ground since their root systems are small compared to those of older trees.

Y'all have had more wind than we have if the leaves are blowing off the trees and/or blowing around. We did have one kind of windy day last week, but the wind wasn't terribly strong.

And, would you believe that I found cracks 1/2" wide in the ground on the north side of the house just about 8 or 10' from the house yesterday. I wasn't expecting the ground to be that dry considering an entire foot of rain fell in September, although most of the rain fell very early in September, courtesy of the remnants of Tropical Storm Hermine. I think 3" of that rain must have come with the little tornado (only an EF-0) that touched down in the Red River just west of our place because only a tiny geographic area near us got those 3" of rain as the tornado was passing by. So, I guess I'll water the ground on the north side of the house today because I don't want the ground cracking any more that close to the house.

Paula,

I still have hummers, or at least I did on Wed.-Thurs. but don't think I saw any on Fri.-Sat. Still, I'll put out fresh nectar today and see if any more show up. We have a whole lot of flowers in bloom here that they like, so if this is like most autumns we'll keep seeing stragglers for quite a while. I used to take the feeders down in late Sept. but discovered if I leave them up, stragglers will occasionally come through for weeks and weeks after I think the hummers are gone.

In fact, in recent years, I've left up and refilled one feeder all winter long because the bees and wasps visit it, and I'll even see them at it in January and February.

We still have lots of butterflies too and that's likely because there are so many flowers in bloom right now. Thanks to the heavy Sept. rains, we have all kinds of wildflowers blooming in the fields and, of course, all the usual flowers in our beds are still blooming and in prety good shape for this late in the year.

I'm ready for some brisk fall winds and some nice autumn leaf color. It doesn't feel like fall here yet, notwithstanding the nice cool nights and chilly mornings. The afternoons still feel like summer---hot, hot, hot although not toasty hot like August weather.

Paula Mc......guess what? Hurricane Otto has been out there in the Atlantic doing its thing, and the NHC is now watching an "area of investigation" that is, perhaps, destined to become the next named storm, and if it does, its name will be "Paula". I haven't checked the tropical weather this morning yet to see what has happened overnight, but when I looked at it last night, "your" storm had a 60% chance of development in the next 48 hours.

And, speaking of weather, we could have some strong to severe weather in our state in the next day or two, so I'm going to go post a thread about that and link the maps. That horrid old word "hail" is in that forecast and none of us wants that.

Dawn

Dawn,
If you haven't had enough wind to blow leaves off the trees yet, I bet you will when this front reaches you. We drove home from our son and DIL's tonight after dark and the leaves coming off the trees reminded me of why this season is called "fall" because the air was full of blowing leaves.

I think the maple tree that looks so bad is pretty well established because it has a trunk a few inches in diameter, so hopefully it will weather this dry spell. It looks like tonight's rain is only teasing us, but maybe we'll get some before the system has moved completely out. They showed news video of hail piled up on the side of the road in Anadarko from earlier this evening. Wow!!

Paula,
It's been a good 2 or 3 weeks since we saw our last hummingbird. I did see a monarch today in the backyard, and every once in a while I see one here or there as I'm driving around. There are still lots of bees on the flowers and a few wasps too.

Suzie

Suzie,

We had some wind last night because a few trees and power lines came down in town as the storms blew through. I know our Mesonet station recorded gusts up to 53 mph so I expected a lot of leaves down this morning (not counting the leaves that are still attached to the trees that came down, lol). In our yard there's very few leaves down this a.m., certainly not as many as I expected.

Maybe the winds can't find us down here in the river valley. : )

I did notice yesterday that some oaks are dropping ugly brown leaves with lots of fungal spots on the leaves.

About a mile from us, on significantly higher ground, the sumacs are suddenly turning a brilliant red, while here in our lower-lying area they still are mostly green. Thus, I think fall color is starting to show up here in our general area, even if it isn't at our place yet.

I didn't see any more hummers this weekend, but still plenty of bees, butterflies, moths and insects of all types. I am still seeing snakes...had one come racing out of a large container while I was watering the brugmansia in that container yesterday. Snakes are the only reason I start hoping for "cold" weather. We've had quite a few deer on our place lately, because the folks on both sides of us are allowing hunting and we don't, so the woods at the back of our property have become a sort of deer haven, and they come up to the compost pile to look for yummy goodies, eat the deer corn I put out for them, and drink from the ponds.

All in all, we're having a lovely early autumn except for the fact that everything is still very, very, very green. Blame it on the rain.....

Dawn

I went to town today after almost a week of staying home. I was surprised at how much color there was when last week I didn't notice any. Sassafrass is turning yellow, sumac red and blackgum that deep burgundy red that they turn. Oh and I saw some dogwood trees a couple miles from here down in a valley that were quite colorful. Here on our place on the hilltop, they are not as far along, just barely begun to turn, still more green than red.

Wow .... the trees in the Edmond area are absolutely spectacular right now. I thought the hot dry summer might mean not much fall color, but I was sure wrong. Driving around Edmond the last couple of days is a real treat for the eyes, seeing all the gold, orange, red, and maroon.

Suzie

i see spectacular fall color in Norman as well! however this was not the case last year.

Much better here in Adair Co than I expected it to be, as well. The woods surrounding the house is all gold, orange and red. Spectacular.

We're finally getting some decent fall color here this week, after I'd about given up on it. The yellows and golds are beautiful, and there is some red, but the red oak foliage is mostly green and just beginning to show red. It does look like the red oak foliage will be a very vivid red, based on the first few leaves that are turning.

It isn't the most spectacular fall foliage we've ever had, but it isn't bad...and better than I was expecting this year.

No idea why, but the trees in my yard always seem to be the last to change. All the other trees in my neighborhood have peaked and are on the downhill side - some close to bare, but still have beautiful color. My maple and oak trees are just now peaking this week - maybe even a few days yet until they are at their full color. Both are absolutely beautiful.

~Laura

Laura, The trees in our yard always seem 'late' too in comparison with other trees in the area.

We still have plenty of oak trees with green foliage that isn't even turning colors yet. Oddly, the post oak in the front yard that usually is the last to drop leaves was one of the first this year. Everything seems messed up here and out-of-sync. I'm blaming it on the foot of rain that fell at our house (most of it from the remains of tropical cyclone Hermine) in September. The trees got all that rain and wanted to grow new leaves instead of shedding the old ones. With that much moisture in a short timeframe, we have a lot of fungal diseases on all the plants, so all our leaves are "spotted" this year and yellow leaves with purplish-blackish-brownish spots are not very pretty.

Dawn