Sugar Maple Magic

Want to keep the fall color going as long as possible? Even after last weekend's wind and rain, sugar maples (Acer saccharum) are hanging onto their glorious multi-hot-hued leaves. Giinkgoes, redbuds and silk trees, all known for late fall color, were mostly de-nuded by Friday night's strong winds. But the sugar maples are still burning brightly, as evidenced by these photos taken at Greenlake by my friend Lauralee Smith, who was prescient enough to bring her camera to the lake early in the morning to get these gorgeous shots just as the sun rose enough to shine on the row of sugar maples she calls "the painbrushes". 

A few leaves have fallen into Greenlake already....to be followed by many more in the next week or so....

Comments

[Hilary]

Lovely pictures.

I couldn't help collecting a bunch of leaves the other day. They were too bright and festive to leave behind!

They're currently being pressed underneath most of my library. Any suggestions for what to do with them once they're done?

[Valerie Easton]

Hi Hilary,

Mounting dried leaves seems almost too much like a grade school project, doesnt it? Maybe a big leaf bouquet?

Val

[Sue Selis]

I have dried leaves and used them in my fall & Thanksgiving decorations. A cluster of lacy Japanese Maple leaves look great on a plain table cloth or combined with dried corn and squash. Sue

[tom]

Nice photos of my old neighborhood; in fact, I was part of a community tree planting group there years ago. The gold leafed maples are to the left in the second to the last photo and the taller red trees to the right are Sweet Gum. Directly across the lake are some stunning bald cypress whose needles turn saffron gold and then drop and just north of those are some tupelos or black gum, which are the fieriest red/orange.