Fall Foliage

17 years ago

Let's discuss our fall foliage reports.

Here in southern OK, most of the foliage on the trees remains green.

However, the trees that turn early....like the native elms and persimmons are gorgeous. The elm foliage on our property is a brilliant yellow and the persimmons are a golden yellow which will, based on past experience, gradually turn an orange-yellow in a few more days. The colors are more vivid than usual, and I think it is because of the cool nights and abundant rainfall.

There are some really large trees in our neighbor's woods...back at the back of the property in the overgrown no-man's land you can't walk through, that are a gorgeous bright red this year...even brighter red than usual. I don't know what turns red this early here. The red oaks on our property normally don't turn red until November, or sometimes latest October, but these particular trees I admire from my back porch every day always are among the first to change colors.

So, any good foliage reports from your parts of the state?

Dawn

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Comments (6)

elkwc
17 years ago
Dawn of course we don't have a lot of trees here. Most were still green with a few changing colors. Not sure what this will do with such a hard freeze. Know they will be falling soon. I saw a first during this. I think I mentioned I had the horn worms hit again. Evidently Mother Nature fooled them also. I was a few on the plants by the garage Tuesday and figured I was in a hurry and it was raining and I left them. One is ice covered now. Jay
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
17 years ago
Jay,

I don't think I could live in a mostly treeless environment. I love the trees, but most years in southern OK, the fall foliage doesn't give us a lot of spectacular color. Usually we stay dry and hot too late in the season, and the leaves mostly turn brown and just drop. I have high hopes for good foliage in this cool, wet autumn.

My tomato plants have been hit by hornworms again in the last week or so as well. They sure have had been persistent this year. This week they've been up in the top of the 8' tall Tess's Land Race Currant, and I just left them alone up there because I wasn't going to drag out a ladder just to climb up and get one or two hornworms. I did seek out and destroy the hornworm at the top of Indian Stripe and Jetstar though. At least they're easy to find...they are starting at the very top of the plants and working their way down.

I guess everything is covered in ice there now. It makes me want to pull out my warm fleece-lined boots and put them on! It is drizzling here, but obviously not frozen.

I need sunlight! I want sunlight! I am getting the urge to paint a room in the house (any room, LOL) a bright sunny yellow. If I wanted to live under endless gray, cloudy, misty, foggy, drizzling skies, I would have moved to the Pacific Northwest.

We've been averaging just about 0 hours of sunlight per day for about the last week, although I remember we had about an hour of sunlight on Thursday. This weather is all wrong---the Octobers I remember (and they seem so far away now) featured gorgeous blue skies with lots of sunlight, moderate rainfall and warm days with cool evenings. This October is painfully different.

Dawn
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littledog
17 years ago
The elms have a nice gold tinge, but most everything else is still a rich, dark green. Other than the sumac which is a burnished bright red, the most colorful plant around here is the poison ivy climbing the trees. I've had the occasional single leaf on a blueberry, sweetspire or crepe myrtle turn vivid orange, but I think they're doing that just to tease me with what's to come. ;^)
mulberryknob
17 years ago
I've seen a few dogwoods out in the open turn the lovely deep red that they get. And the sumacs are scarlet. A few maples have color starting to show but only on some branches. I also saw a blackgum that had turned. But our oaks, hickories, and other trees haven't started turning. A few elms are starting to go gold, but only a little.
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
17 years ago
I forgot about the poison ivy turning red. I do see that on some of the trees in the woods.

Our sumac aren't turning here yet.
soonergrandmom
17 years ago
We noticed that the fall foliage was beginning last week in SW Missouri and this week it seems to have moved down our way. There is a little town in SW Missouri that is always beautiful in fall. Every year I say, "Next year I am going to Seneca to take pictures", but I never remember to put my camera in the car when I go through there. For weeks you will see cameras on tripods in the street as people take pictures of the beautiful trees.

We have a tree in our yard that we are still not exactly sure of it's name. We have a forester friend and he wasn't exactly sure either. It is a huge tree with large leaves and every year in August, it starts to lose it's leaves. They turn yellow and drop, long before any other trees in the neighborhood. At first I thought the tree was starting to die, but no, it just drops leaves early. This year that didn't happen, so I can only assume that it has trouble dealing with the normal August heat (as I do). LOL This year it was much cooler and we have had a real fall season and it looks about like the other trees.

All of the signs of autumn are here. We have seen the pelicans, heard the geese fly over, and watched the leaves starting to turn.......and there's those darn black walnuts that are all over my yard. It's another sign of the season.