Leaf Color.

10-29-10 SHORT HILLS: We’re back to seasonal weather and might get a first frost in the next few nights. The big storm that ravaged the mid-west was exhausted by the time it got here, and all we had was a breezy day and, maybe, a quarter inch of rain.

The deciduous trees are busy conserving nutrients and energy stores generated in and by the leaves and storing them in the trunks and roots for the winter. This is why the leaves lose the green color, which comes from chlorophyll, and display the yellows, oranges, pinks, purples and reds we all love. The yellows are from carotenoids which also color carrots, of course, other veggies and egg yolks. The carotenoids are present in the leaf all season but only appear when the green is gone. The reds are from anthocyanins. These chemicals are produced when chlorophyll production ceases. Why? They may repel aphids from over-wintering eggs on the tree, or they may, after leaf fall, suppress the growth of competing tree species.

Nothing a plant spends energy on is frivolous or wasted, but is a hard-won trait providing some survival advantage resulting from years of evolutionary wars.


Borrowed from Wikepedia, authored by the USDA Forest Service.


Another maple. Does it look different now that we know a little more about it?

More Berries and Magnolias.

10-26-10 SHORT HILLS: Warm weather continues with a light breeze and humid air—feels like the tropics. Rain has seemed imminent for a few days, but all we’ve gotten is 0.1 inches.

I went to Home Depot to get bird seed, which I did, and found that all their trees and shrubs are 50% off list price. Well—who could ignore that? Especially because the stock looked good, and fall is a good time to plant, no worries about too hot or too dry and time enough for the plant to get established before any hard frost.

I bought and planted a southern magnolia, Magnolia grandiflora 'Bracken's Brown Beauty', and three beautyberry, Callicarpa japonica, which have the most vividly-colored, small magenta berries. Birds, this is for you.

The burning bush and red maples have started to turn in NJ.


Is this a vivid color? If you were a bird, could you resist these?

Roses are still on the job.

Red Seeds.

10-24-10 SHORT HILLS: So far we have had I cold night, no frost, but in the mid-thirties. [Where I’d like to be.] It has been dry, but rain is promised for this week. It’s pleasantly warm, T-shirt weather, if you’re working outside. I did move and extend a rock border to the bed with the southern magnolias and a bunch of other trees and shrubs including viburnums, yews, hollies, spireas, barberries, a dawn redwood and a hawthorn. As the bed gets bigger, I adjust the border.

While working around the magnolias, I was struck by the opening seed clusters. The seeds are brightly colored, red, as are so many berries in the yard—burning bush, spice bush, holly, barberry, viburnums, yew—to mention a few. Why does the plant invest in the bulky, vividly-colored seed coverings? Why not just put the DNA package out in the air or dump it on the ground? Why go to the expense of a fancy seed in what is always a tight economy for the plant?

I guess the answer is that the pretty wrappings make the seed look like a tasty present for the birds and, maybe the squirrels. If the animal eats the seed for its cover of carbohydrate, a day later it poops out the hard center of the seed, with the DNA, some place else and wrapped in a bit of fertilizer. That way the plant’s offspring get scattered around to new sites promoting the enhanced survival of the species. Since so many do it, it must be a successful strategy.


Southern Magnolia, Magnolia grandiflora, fruit ball with seeds.


Sugar Maple looks even sweeter today.

Witch-Hazel.

10-21-10 SHORT HILLS: I just noticed that witch-hazel is in bloom. The flowers are tiny and delicate and don’t exactly draw you in from fifty feet away like a magnolia or peony. They are pleasantly scented if you get close enough. Who do you suppose pollinates these flowers? When it is still in leaf, it’s easier to see the flowers from underneath the leaves. Some witch-hazels flower only after the leaves have fallen. Some are reddish and come out in very early spring. When the leaves turn, they have the same color, yellow, as the flowers. These shrubs are not the source of hazel nuts, but do make a fruit with four seeds. The shrubs can get ten to twenty feet tall and tolerate full shade.

That dead leaf is from the tree that keeps the witch-hazel in shade most of the growing season.


From underneath the leaves, the flowers have four bracts, four ribbon-like petals and four stamen around a central pistil.

You can see an opening flower bud here.

The Sun Sinks South.

10-20-10 SHORT HILLS: The weather has been seasonal. We got another 0.1 inches of rain.

We are one month past the Equinox, when the sun was on the Equator, and the sun is now half way down to its southernmost declination. On this date in August, the sun was at the corresponding declination in the northern hemisphere. The sun has moved 23° of latitude southward in 60 days.

The foliage color, a response to the sun’s movement, is good here in NJ and, again, changing earlier than usual, a response to some unknown effect of the weather this growing season.

Sweet Gum Tree.

Sugar Maple.

Pumpkins Float Down Connecticut River

10-16-70 SHORT HILLS: We had another storm here Thursday night which delivered another 0.65 inches of rain. Friday and today have been very windy, shaking all the loose leaves out of all the trees.

A few days ago, before the last rain, I was out in the yard with the dogs, and we were caught in a leaf storm. A wind gust shook ash trees and, for a few minutes, it rained yellow leaves, all back-lit by the sun. Of course, I didn’t have the camera with me, and it was over by the time I got it.

The color here is already pretty good. Here’s an ash from a few days ago.



That storm at the beginning of the month caused a lot of flooding in the Connecticut River Valley in VT and NH. Pumpkin farms on the banks of the river to north of us had hundreds of acres of pumpkins harvested from the vines, but not yet gathered. They estimated a 100,000 pumpkins set sail down river. A disaster for the farm families, but dramatic videos.

Vermont Pix.

10-13-10 SHORT HILLS: We came back to NJ yesterday. The color was actually better in southern VT, MA and CN than what we had further north. Back in NJ we had had 1.2 inches of rain, so we're catching up. Here are some of the pix from last week in Vermont:


Norwich-tree tops.

Thetford-Brady the horse takes five.

Thetford-Red Maple again.

Woodstock-Big barn, little hill.

Pomfret-all hills.

Pomfret-Galaxy Rd.

Pomfret-pasture.

Actually, we left by car.