More Autumn Colors at the Farm
The plants and trees continue to show off their fall colors.
This time of year, because of the changes in temperature and length of daylight, the leaves stop their food-making process. When this happens, the chlorophyll breaks down and the green color disappears, making way for all the shades of autumn. Here at my Bedford, New York farm, we're still waiting for a hard frost, but the colors across the landscape are beautiful - various shades of orange, yellow, brown, red, and evergreen.
Enjoy these photos - they were taken using a Google Pixel 5G.
-
- There is always something new to see around the farm this time of year. The colors change daily. Here’s a view looking up at a sugar maple above my tree peony garden bed. These trees display gorgeous colors in fall – the leaves turn vibrant shades of yellow, burnt orange, and red.
-
- Along one side of my carriage road across from the long pergola is a stand of bald cypress trees, Taxodium distichum. This section is always the first to turn in autumn. Bald cypress trees are deciduous conifers that shed their needlelike leaves in the fall. In fact, they get the name “bald” cypress because they drop their leaves so early in the season. Their fall colors are tan, cinnamon, and fiery orange.
-
- Outside my Winter House kitchen is this beautiful Nyssa sylvatica, or black tupelo. Its summer leaves are a dark green, but in the fall its foliage turns yellow, orange, bright red, purple or scarlet – all colors that may appear on the same branch.
-
- In the fall, linden tree leaves turn a spectacular bright yellow color. Lindens, Tilia, are also known as basswoods, and have sturdy, straight trunks and profuse foliage. This allee runs from the old corn crib to my allée of boxwood.
-
- I loved the linden allee so much, I extended it to the chicken coops. Here is the newer section – planted about four years ago. I am so pleased with how well the trees are growing.
-
- Over the years, I’ve planted many different types of trees in hopes that they would shade, provide climate control, and change color at different times, in different ways. Here is some of the autumn color seen across one of my paddocks.
-
- This is one side of my allee of pin oaks, Quercus palustris. They are turning a gorgeous russet brown. These trees have done so well on my farm. They have such an interesting growth habit – pendulous lower branches, horizontal middle branches, and upright upper branches. Pin oaks normally reach 60 to 70 feet tall but can reach heights of 100-feet.
-
- This is my grove of American beech trees, Fagus grandifolia. These American beech trees offer a beautiful autumn show every year. American beech is native to the eastern United States and Canada. It is a deciduous tree with smooth gray bark.
-
- Not far from the American beech tree grove is the winding road leading to my hayfields and woodlands. This is always a popular viewpoint – in every season.
-
- For fall color, the sweetgum, Liquidambar styraciflua, is hard to beat. Its glossy green, star-shaped leaves turn fiery shades of red, orange, yellow and purple this time of year.
-
- The foliage of American sycamore trees is a vast crown of large leaves. In autumn, sycamore tree leaves turn shades of yellow and brown.
-
- These are the large, glossy leaves of the tulip tree – changing from green to gold. My tulip trees are the tallest at the farm – these trees can grow more than 120-feet. In the late spring bright yellowish-green and orange flowers bloom. They resemble tulips in shape. The silhouette of the tree’s leaves is also tulip-shaped – look closely at these leaves. Together, these features give the tulip tree its name. The tulip tree is also known as tulip poplar, yellow poplar, whitewood, and tulip magnolia. Some of these names can be deceiving, as the tree is not a true poplar. Instead, it belongs to the magnolia family.
-
- This is a Norway spruce – an evergreen. Although these lose some needles every year, their closely spaced branches make the loss less noticeable than on pines.
-
- This is a mature Japanese Stewartia, Stewartia pseudocamellia, just outside my Summer House garden. Native to Japan, this tree is known not only for its brilliant shades of orange that emerge in fall, but also for its interesting exfoliating bark and delicate blooms. I love Stewartia trees – do you know why? Here’s a hint: it’s in the name.
-
- These are the leaves and seed pods of the Styrax japonicus ‘Marley’s Pink Parasol’ trees that line both sides of the carriage road to my tennis court. The leaves transform to a bright and cheery lemon yellow in fall.
-
- Not far from the Styrax are the Osage orange trees, which in the fall turn bright yellow before the leaves drop. The Osage orange, Macular pomifera, is more commonly known as a hedge apple, bow wood, or bodark.
-
- The bright yellow-gold trees are both American larch, Larix laricina, standing out in the pinetum. This tree is commonly called tamarack, eastern larch, American larch or hackmatack. This deciduous conifer will drop all these showy needles just as winter approaches.
-
- Ginkgo biloba, one of the world’s oldest tree species, turns an amazing yellow this time of year and then all at once drops its leaves – it’s another complex phenomenon of nature.
-
- Oak trees have some of the most vibrant fall foliage – the leaves often turn a reddish-brown color.
-
- I love how the smaller Japanese maples look under the canopy of taller maples and tulip trees in the Japanese maple tree woodland. I planted so many Japanese maples here – hundreds of cultivars with countless forms, leaf types, and sizes.
-
- The perimeter around my paddocks displays such wonderful shades of amber, brown, orange and green. Rinze, Bond, and Banchunch are surrounded in fall splendor. What does autumn look like where you live? Share your autumn descriptions with me in the comments section below. Happy fall!
Martha Pins
Martha Tweets
