Maybe autumn by you this year is spectacular. Maybe the trees are blazing with vermilion red and juicy orange and Fort Knox gold leaves.
Or maybe, like me, you are seeing deciduous trees that should be reaching their glory days but instead are fading to a meek grayish-brown. Their leaves hang from the trees as though too exhausted to put up a fight against winter—the kind of gritty brawl culminating in those vibrant primary-tinted bruises of foliage that won’t go down without a fight. No, the trees here are waving dingy dishrag-color leaves in surrender.
What is the deal? Our hit-and-miss precipitation of the last past season may be responsible. We’ll go for months with almost constant rain and then see weeks of iron skies and parched earth. The leaves may be tired of all the drama and just want to drift quietly to the ground with little fanfare.
Are these leaf-shedders following the spirit of the times, ashamed of their deciduous privilege? Or, conversely, envious of their evergreen siblings? Who knows. And who knows but that autumn might surprise me and coming storming back in a blaze of eye-searing hues.
In the meantime, (and for my Midwest-homesick son living in gravelly L.A.) I will feast my eyes on these visions of Autumn Past.
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Sigh. I’ve been ragging on about this for two weeks at least, Prude. We have new Oklahoma neighbors, and I wished for them to be welcomed with a magnificent display. But all of us on the block are raking brown and gray curled-up dead leaves, dropped without ever a hint of former glory. Where are those hidden jewels we only see when the chlorophyll ceases to be produced? ACK! You have a sad but apt article here!!!!!
It’s kind of the same way where I am, although there are bits of color here and there. I blame it on the fact that we haven’t had any frost yet. The upside of no frost is that most of my flowers are still blooming, so it’s kind of a tradeoff.
I spoke too soon. No frost yet here but all of a sudden we are seeing some color and I am wearing my trigger finger out snapping photos.