So the leaves are finally starting to change around here. I know some of you have already had snow come and go, but I do live in the Heart of Dixie.
Many people find fall a beautiful time because of the vibrant colors of the dying leaves. For some reasons, I associate autumn landscape pictures with jigsaw puzzles from the 70s. The ones that are probably missing pieces because they were bought at a yard sale and have been in the back of the closet for a while. But I do like fall trees in person, especially maples that turn bright red or anything that turns bright yellow.
We are privileged, at our house, to have a gingko tree. (Not to be sexist, but it's a boy tree, and we're glad.) Gingkos do their fall thing a little bit different than most trees. I think they're actually way older than many varieties of tree, but I might have made that part up. So maybe they were the first draft of fall beauty. It got more complex after that.
Gingkos are unusual, because their leaves are a very uniform color of green. And when they change color, they change to an almost completely uniform color of yellow. And, normally, the whole tree does it all at once. Like all in a day or so, or so it seems if you're not paying close attention.
But the gingko tree in our backyard, for reasons unknown, is even more unusual than that. Because it doesn't change all at once. The back half changes first, and then the front half catches up a couple days later.
I don't know if it's because it's pretty close to the house, and the front half stays warmer from radiating heat; or because the back half gets more strong afternoon sunlight, whereas the front half is shaded by the house and the tall trees in the front yard most of the day; or for some other reason, but the line between the two halves is remarkably pronounced.
It's just started, so the back is almost yellow, and the front half's green is just beginning to fade. This is one of those times when I wish I were cool enough to post pictures to my blog, but I'm not, so you'll just have to use your imagination.
4 comments:
Dude, there was a report in our paper recently that informed me that sometimes male ginko trees transform into female ones. Don't assume you're safe!
That is crazy. It'd better not happen. I will keep our tree away from hormones. Thanks for the heads-up!
Don't male gingkos smell bad?
I feel like I learned that someplace.
No, it's the female ones that are smelly and messy. They are the ones that have fruit.
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