Autumn blaze
Why is it so late this year? Seems we’ve been waiting for weeks, expecting the green of summer to segue into the glories of fall, but it’s been so slow happening. Just a stand of sumac here, a red maple there, and neither in full glorious crimson, after the long wet summer we had.
Even my sister’s autumn blaze maple in Lakefield hasn’t started turning yet, while last year it was a fiery red-orange throughout September. Nor has my niece’s two autumn blaze beauties, way north near Ottawa, where they’re just now having frost! We saw that popular, bright-coloured cultivar for the first time down in Ithaca, NY, years ago, but they weren’t turning there yet, either, when I visited last week.
We’ve gotta have patience with Mother Nature, I know, but isn’t this the latest autumn ever? Which I guess is a good thing, giving us more time to get around to all the fall chores. Like bringing in the house plants before the cold arrives, and maybe even repainting the worn, peeling porch they spent the summer on.
And more time to dig up the beautiful black walnut tree a squirrel planted near the lily barrel, and figure out where to put it. It’s now taller than I am, a fountain of green leaves that flutter in every breeze. But we don’t want a shade tree reaching out over the garden, so it has to have a new home. More guerrilla gardening…
Which could be another good thing. A dear old neighbour up the street went on to glory, and the new buyers didn’t like her trees. It happens every time we lose a neighbour and the house is sold. Three blue spruces she treasured are gone, plus a big copper beech, and I don’t want to know what they took out of the back yard with all those roaring chainsaws. Maybe our black walnut would be happy across the road from there, in all that sunshine going to waste.
I’m sure everyone has a long list of trees they’ve lived with, known and loved, and remember as old friends. I instantly recall the ancient shagbark hickory in our front yard when I was a kid. Those nuts that fell were so good, and so hard to crack open with little-kid shoes. Its leaves would turn a dusty gold in autumn, nowhere near as bright and vivid as the maple Mom planted nearby, but prettier than those of the towering white oaks that stood like corner posts on the property. Their leaves turned brown and curled up as they fell, making great piles to jump in when we’d rake them up, and fragrant smoke when we burned them, the most delicious, unforgettable scent of fall.
That was back before anyone realized carbon dioxide might be a problem. These enlightened days leaves are packed in big paper gardening bags and hauled away to municipal composting sites. Or better yet, left where they are to cover the earth in winter, food for the hosts of tiny creatures that compost leaf litter for free.
But before any of that happens we get to watch in awe as the world turns from green to glorious.
