BS: Signs of Autumn

Subject: RE: BS: Signs of Autumn
From: keberoxu
Date: 08 Oct 17 - 04:42 PM

A Morris Side of huge spiders. This thread has some diamond posts.

Subject: RE: BS: Signs of Autumn
From: Gallus Moll
Date: 08 Oct 17 - 04:58 PM

Acme, there are many amazing Copper Beech trees around here, many of the former 'big houses' have them - also Monkey Puzzle trees, I guess they were fashionable back in Victorian times?
There is a very striking one in the Younger Botanical Gardens in the parkland in front of Benmore house - -very photogenic.
My tree is actually bigger and more beautiful, but in a more cramped setting - a road in front of it, a hill to one side and the slope down the glen to the burn on the other.
I have a magnificent Monkey Puzzle in my garden too -- 40 years ago it was one of those with a long bare stem and a bunch of branches at the top - but about 20 years ago it changed and began sprouting lower branches -- amazing! (tho not when your head brushes against one - -)
then about 15 years a ago it began to produce seed regularly ie every or almost every year!
Not many of them germinate but we have a few babies of different ages growing around the place -- they don't seem to transplant well (or maybe I don't know how to handle them properly)
BUT- - in recent times there has been a disease affecting Monkey Puzzles, airborne I understand - no cure. So my fingers are very tightly crossed that mine stays safe - - I could not bear to lose two beautiful specimens!
Some of my red squirrels have a drey in the Monkey Puzzle, and magpies nest in it too -- they must have evolved techniques for not getting jagged!

Subject: RE: BS: Signs of Autumn
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Oct 17 - 08:51 PM

I studied the monkey puzzle and its fossil come-froms at university. I'm not really a monkey puzzle fan when I see it in suburban gardens, though I believe that it's magnificent in its native forests in South America. Wherever I go in slightly warmer European climes than here, I see the Norfolk Island Pine, not a pine at all but a very close relative of the monkey puzzle. That's a very nice architectural tree. I love the stone pines of Italy, as I've said before, and my other favourite iconic tree of Europe is the Mediterranean cypress, Cupressus sempervirens.

Subject: RE: BS: Signs of Autumn
From: keberoxu
Date: 09 Oct 17 - 01:23 PM

. . . tonight the winter quilt has to come off
because it's too warm. Back to the cotton blanket.

Subject: RE: BS: Signs of Autumn
From: keberoxu
Date: 13 Oct 17 - 04:38 PM

There are certain retail places --
that includes restaurants not just shops --
that I know to stay out of, about this time of year.
We're just coming up to Samhain / All Hallows / Halloween now;
but in "Retail State Of Mind"
they are already promoting Thanksgiving and Christmas...
so I'll just wait til November maybe...

Subject: RE: BS: Signs of Autumn
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Oct 17 - 06:54 PM

I picked about a hundred pounds of apples today. I have to give most of them away but I'm absolutely loving munching my way through Fiestas (aka Red Pippin), Jupiter, Laxton's Fortune and, believe it or not, Golden Delicious which, when you grow it yourself and pick it ripe, is totally unlike the shop-bought version. I also have hundredweights of Bramleys. They were here before us. I give nearly all of those away. I can't stand sloppy apple sauce! The trouble is that scoffing apples with abandon makes me fart like a trooper. I care not a jot. That's everybody else's problem, not mine! I never buy shop apples. I want apples picked ripe between August and November. I have no interest in them beyond those months.

Subject: RE: BS: Signs of Autumn
From: Joe Offer
Date: 13 Oct 17 - 07:20 PM

We're on the eastern edge of the Pacific Flyway in Northern California, so lots of migrating birds fly past us. Many more will spend the winter in the Sacramento River Valley. We've seen flocks of Sandhill cranes, and scads of turkey buzzards, and lots of geese.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Signs of Autumn
From: keberoxu
Date: 21 Oct 17 - 06:13 PM

I know there will be CHRISTMAS crapola all over the Cracker Barrel store,
but I'm hungry,
so I'm going to the restaurant anyhow
for their chicken and rice with mushroom gravy. (I said I was hungry.)

Subject: RE: BS: Signs of Autumn
From: Gallus Moll
Date: 21 Oct 17 - 06:38 PM

It happened - the decision was taken for me when Storm Ophelia blew over from Ireland.
It has been a traumatic week - the thought of what might have been if she had fallen on a person, amazement that she managed to lay herself along the very line the tree surgeon would have chosen (but thought impossible) and terrible sorrow that this beautiful tree is fallen, dead, just a memory, leaving an huge empty space and a sad jagged stump. (Hope google street view don't return for a long time)

GRIEVING for a COPPER BEECH
My heart is broken, gentle giant, as I see you lying there; tis a
shocking thing that you have fallen, your life cut short by the storm.

I thought I was your custodian, privileged to have your companionship
and beauty, your shade and shelter, for the years I lived beside you,
just as others have done, over more than a century and a half.
I believed you would still be standing tall, guarding the gateway,
sheltering the land, feeding the squirrels, harbouring birds.

Your fresh green leaves of Springtime turning deep copper in Summer,
through all the shades of brown, gold, bronze, yellow then casting
your nuts like a gentle shower as you prepared for Winter sleep.
The hurricane that took you - did you know, and fear the end?
If you had fallen on the road it might have caused great harm;
but it seems to me you twisted round to lay yourself down just so, in
the garden where you had lived so long, beside the aged Monkey Puzzle.

Perhaps the thoughts of past companions who lived in this place
before, reached out with ethereal hands to support and guide you as
you fell? Those long gone who knew and loved you, people just like me.

I'm heartfelt sorry dear old friend, companion of all those years gone by.
I can't believe you are no more - for such a mighty tree now to be
a sawn-up carcase, firewood logs, brashing and sawdust piles is an awful sight to see.
                                 
In a few short months there will be no sign that you had ever lived
But I saved some of your seeds, and I hope that they will sprout when
Springtime comes again, I'll plant some young on your behalf
and hope so very much that a hundred years from now at least one
more magnificent Copper Beech will tower above this home you had - -
that is my fervent wish.

Adieu old friend and thank you - I grieve that you are no more.
                        __________________________

Subject: RE: BS: Signs of Autumn
From: Donuel
Date: 22 Oct 17 - 09:05 AM

Unrelenting heat has left the leaves unchanged. While the sun shines chlorophyll continues to make sugar. Only the weary leaves do fall brown and dead. There are only four weeks left for the trees to change and drop all their drop their leaves. The canopy is still full with virtually all their original leaves from late March.

Cool mornings and near 80 degrees in the afternoon. may lure the forests into a false security that will bring them low with snow and fracture many unto a deadly fall.

Subject: RE: BS: Signs of Autumn
From: Stanron
Date: 22 Oct 17 - 10:50 AM

Was I dreaming or did I really see a weather forecast promising a heatwave, here in the UK, on Thursday?

Subject: RE: BS: Signs of Autumn
From: Donuel
Date: 22 Oct 17 - 10:58 AM

Global warming is not a promise we can break.
It is merely a fact.

Subject: RE: BS: Signs of Autumn
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Oct 17 - 04:10 PM

Generally speaking, deciduous trees don't rely on temperature signals to drop their leaves. It's all daylength and hormones.

Subject: RE: BS: Signs of Autumn
From: keberoxu
Date: 22 Oct 17 - 07:10 PM

Thinking of you, Gallus Moll. Thanks for your posts and for calling the tree "she."

Subject: RE: BS: Signs of Autumn
From: Gallus Moll
Date: 23 Oct 17 - 12:25 PM

Thank you keberoxu -- - not sure if Beech trees have separate sexes (I know some do eg Hollies, Hazels) - but I reckon if this living being produces nuts/offspring then 'she' is the correct term!

I have found the whole episode traumatic- from all the 'might have beens' if she had fallen onto the road or even on one of the vans/cars driving in and out of the garden at various points (postie etc!) - thanks goodness no person or pet (dog/cat/chickens) was killed / injured- - am hoping very much that the wild birds and red squirrels would have had sufficient time to escape.
It is a shame that various plants, bushes, fruit trees have been wrecked, specially those planted for a special reason (to mark the grave of a pet, or given as a gift, or souvenir of some special occasion) also there's the inconvenience of replacing a hen house and some chicken runs.
But the worst thing of all is seeing the jagged stump and the huge sad carcase of what was a truly magnificent being, perhaps even older that the house she quietly guarded during the years. I feel so helpless, there is nothing I can do.....
I will plant her seeds for future generations, but it is terrible looking at the empty space where this glorious Copper Beech once stood.

Subject: RE: BS: Signs of Autumn
From: Donuel
Date: 23 Oct 17 - 03:37 PM

Yep, if a tree has nuts, its a girl. The paw paw tree has what appear to be twin fruit testicles that hang low. They have a banana like texture and a wintergreen flavor. They grow from Michigan to Carolina

There is a blush of color in the area now.

Subject: RE: BS: Signs of Autumn
From: keberoxu
Date: 24 Oct 17 - 07:20 PM

When I left Massachusetts for Arizona, the tree foliage was vivid colors.
Most likely the leaves are all on the ground being blown around by leaf blowers now.

Subject: RE: BS: Signs of Autumn
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Oct 17 - 08:16 PM

Beech trees are monoecious, that is, they bear flowers of both sexes on the same plant. Unlike with many flowering plants male and female parts are in separate flowers (which is what "monoecious" means), but on the same tree. The product of the male flowers has you sneezing in the spring and the product of the female flowers feeds the wild boar in the autumn.

Subject: RE: BS: Signs of Autumn
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Oct 17 - 08:40 PM

If you've collected beech nuts from your tree there's a fair chance that some, or most, of them will give you a copper beech, though some may turn out green.

First, give your nuts a squeeze (😉) to check that they are nice and plump. You may find a lot of empty ones. Now for the hard bit. Beech seeds must be stratified, in other words they have to think they've been through a winter before they'll germinate. Sow two or three in three-inch pots in well-drained compost (add a bit of sharp sand or something, leaf mould if you make it) and leave them outside for the winter. You will have to fiercely protect them from birds, mice and squirrels. Maybe put them in a shed or outdoor garden store and keep an eye on them for getting too dry, but those BLOODY mice...In the spring make sure they don't dry out. Your success rate may still be quite low. Another thing you can do is to put some seeds in little plastic bags of dry but not bone-dry compost and put them in your fridge for the winter, then sow them in late Feb or March in pots outdoors. Don't expect fast germination. Just leave them, for months if necessary. I'm trying this with stone pine seeds that I bought in Madeira. They are in the fridge for a few more weeks yet. Good luck!

Subject: RE: BS: Signs of Autumn
From: mg
Date: 24 Oct 17 - 11:42 PM

Flooding the cranberry bogs

Subject: RE: BS: Signs of Autumn
From: Gallus Moll
Date: 25 Oct 17 - 06:22 AM

Thank you Steve- - I was wondering why the younger beech trees already growing around my garden (presumably having grown from fallen nuts or ones buried by squirrels?) did not have the deep copper colour of the fallen one- - is there some way of encouraging this to happen or is it just random chance?
Our winters have not been so cold in recent times- - 40 years ago I had to cover the car windscreen with newspaper from November to February (the days before screen defrosting sprays!) but the screen is rarely frozen nowadays.

Subject: RE: BS: Signs of Autumn
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 25 Oct 17 - 06:54 AM

It's all in the genes. You'll have to grow a few for a year or two and do some selecting. You won't have the heart to ditch the rejects though!

Subject: RE: BS: Signs of Autumn
From: Gallus Moll
Date: 25 Oct 17 - 05:29 PM

you are correct -- anyway I'll not be around to see the mature results!
I guess we plant hardwood trees for future generations.

Subject: RE: BS: Signs of Autumn
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 25 Oct 17 - 07:45 PM

Well I reckon you have a good few years left in you! I always tell Mrs Steve that I can't die this coming winter because I've just planted out my purple sprouting for next spring and I'm damned if I won't be around to eat it! I'm pretreating some stone pine seeds in my fridge at the moment and will sow them in the spring. As I'm 66 I know I'll never be harvesting pine nuts from them, but the joy is in growing them. I'm also trying some Strelitzia seeds, the bird of paradise flower that looked so lovely all over Madeira, knowing full well that I won't see a flower until I'm at least 71! These things have to be done!

Subject: RE: BS: Signs of Autumn
From: keberoxu
Date: 27 Oct 17 - 05:57 PM

Bare trees, for the first time in months and months.

Subject: RE: BS: Signs of Autumn
From: keberoxu
Date: 30 Oct 17 - 11:55 AM

First time i've seen THIS in over a year:
the aftermath of the previous day's wind and rain.

Fallen Leaf Mush! The stormwinds blow the leaves off the branches;
the heavy rain makes porridge out of the fallen leaves.

And now the colorful mushy stuff
is all over the streets, sidewalks, driveways, curbs,
parked cars ...

it's kind of a challenge for the leaf blowers
when the leaves are saturated and sopping wet.

Subject: RE: BS: Signs of Autumn
From: Charmion
Date: 31 Oct 17 - 08:07 AM

Sunrise at 0730 and frequent cold rain. Hunting for gloves. Duvet back on the bed. Cats even more somnolent than usual. Advertisements for snow tires. "Shouldn't you have called the furnace cleaners by now?"

Subject: RE: BS: Signs of Autumn
From: Donuel
Date: 31 Oct 17 - 08:28 AM

snow tires mounted, insulated windows check, clearing out basement looking for chrismas crap. One or two more mowing mulching of the leaves and then I need to extract the snow blower from the growing weeds where it was parked all summer. Furnace should be replaced , maybe next year. like I promised 15 years ago.

Subject: RE: BS: Signs of Autumn
From: keberoxu
Date: 31 Oct 17 - 06:27 PM

Come ON, landlord,
turn the heat on in my apartment building
!!

Subject: RE: BS: Signs of Autumn
From: keberoxu
Date: 09 Sep 18 - 05:38 PM

Ah, well.
It will be a while before the heat gets turned on
in my apartment building.
And the nights are really cool now.
So, out with the my-God-this-thing-is-heavy quilt.

Subject: RE: BS: Signs of Autumn
From: Gallus Moll
Date: 11 Sep 18 - 01:27 PM

copper beech update- - discovered my lovely neighbour across the way has a copper beech sapling from a self seeded nut of my poor old tree! He has offered it to me when I get around to start reorganising the garden - ie get the wood cutters and chippers round to finish the job of dismantling and clearing the body of my beautiful tree. Parts of it don't know they are dead- sprouts have grown from the supine trunk! And the poor stump does not realise there is no tree above to feed, it still draws water and nutrients from the ground - in vain.
Many of the other plants and bushes that I thought had been destroyed have amazingly forced their way through and around the wreckage of the beech, flourished all summer. Fingers crossed they survive the next onslaught when the final cutting up of the trunk happens!
I feel calmer about the whole experience now - there are benefits, much more light /better views - however the whole world can see in now, no shelter!
Coming up for 11 months -- what a sad year, what a dreadful loss.

Subject: RE: BS: Signs of Autumn
From: keberoxu
Date: 14 Sep 18 - 09:35 PM

The trees are turning, I mean the leaves are.
And early morning has that crispness to the air
which has been sorely lacking
during the muggy soggy humid summer heat wave.

Subject: RE: BS: Signs of Autumn
From: keberoxu
Date: 16 Sep 18 - 07:22 PM

Apples, anybody?

What kinds of apples are ripening for the harvest
where you live?

Subject: RE: BS: Signs of Autumn
From: keberoxu
Date: 19 Oct 19 - 04:02 PM

And one year later ...
the recent nor'easter storm in the NE United States
relieved the trees of many many leaves.
Not to say that the trees are bare, mind you.

There will be many more fallen leaves before it's all over;
but right now
the dead leaves are piling up for the first time this year.

And if/when it rains again,
then we get that street mush
that results from wet sodden fallen leaves.

Subject: RE: BS: Signs of Autumn
From: Donuel
Date: 19 Oct 19 - 04:31 PM

Its time to keep the car in AWD. Wet leaves are slippery.
In 48 hours some trees went from a small change to a total color change. Acorns are raining down on their own. Bare branches are common by Thanksgiving in DC. Red holly berries are resplendent and the jewel berries are sapphire blue.

Subject: RE: BS: Signs of Autumn
From: keberoxu
Date: 21 Oct 19 - 01:34 PM

I do wish that the heat would come on.
My building however is brick, and keeps the heat in,
such heat as there is, well enough.
Changed quilts/coverlets this season,
letting go of the impossibly heavy quilt
for one that is lighter-weight
with a woolen blanket layered beneath.

Subject: RE: BS: Signs of Autumn
From: Donuel
Date: 21 Oct 19 - 01:39 PM

You don't have any old instruments do you.

Subject: RE: BS: Signs of Autumn
From: keberoxu
Date: 28 Oct 19 - 03:53 PM

... old instruments ... ?


Bare trees visible now,
amongst the finally flaming-to-life colors
of maples and oaks.

Subject: RE: BS: Signs of Autumn
From: Mrrzy
Date: 28 Oct 19 - 04:28 PM

I got nuttin..it was 85* yesterday. That is almost 30* to you Europeans...

Subject: RE: BS: Signs of Autumn
From: Donuel
Date: 28 Oct 19 - 07:11 PM

Old wood instruments crack if heat is turned off when it reaches 30-40F.

Subject: RE: BS: Signs of Autumn
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 29 Oct 19 - 10:19 AM

As of yesterday (though it probably happened before then), EGGNOG is in the dairy case at Market Basket.

Sigh, that's more of a sign that Autumn is over and the "holiday" (Hallowe'en, US Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's) has begun.

Linn

Subject: RE: BS: Signs of Autumn
From: Jeri
Date: 29 Oct 19 - 10:59 AM

I love eggnog. But it's about 1,000,000 calories per fluid ounce. So this year, it's eggNOT.

I visited my cousin in upstate NY last weekend, and we drove towards Canada on the Northway. She'd lived on Whiteface Mountain as a kid, and was quite familiar with the Lake George area.
The trees had moved from the yellow-peachy-red phase into various shades of brown, contrasted by evergreens. Like this (View of Schroon Mountain, Essex County, New York, After a Storm, by Thomas Cole)

Subject: RE: BS: Signs of Autumn
From: Donuel
Date: 29 Oct 19 - 11:05 AM

If you buy it now it will turn by christmas. I like the one that tastes like Jack Daniels

Subject: RE: BS: Signs of Autumn
From: Donuel
Date: 30 Oct 19 - 09:47 AM

Time to switch to snow tires.

Subject: RE: BS: Signs of Autumn
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 30 Oct 19 - 10:59 AM

We had about a week of autumn before it shifted straight into winter. And I was working on a deadline that didn't give me time to do some of the outdoor work I needed during that week. Bummer.

Subject: RE: BS: Signs of Autumn
From: keberoxu
Date: 31 Oct 19 - 04:30 PM

There are going to be, when the sun comes up tomorrow,
a lot of stripped-bare trees
and a MESS of wet fallen leaves beneath.

Subject: RE: BS: Signs of Autumn
From: Donuel
Date: 01 Nov 19 - 06:51 AM

You see the leaves of trees in DC are now past peak

Subject: RE: BS: Signs of Autumn
From: Charmion
Date: 01 Nov 19 - 06:59 AM

Winter arrived in Perth County, Ontario, at about 2200 hours last night, with howling winds and a sudden drop in temperature. It had been raining for three days straight, and now we have snow.

It’s still blowing a gale. F***.

Subject: RE: BS: Signs of Autumn
From: keberoxu
Date: 12 Sep 20 - 12:25 PM

In southwestern Massachusetts,
the maple leaves are turning from green to orange.

We have yet to have an overnight freeze
(which would mean death to mosquitoes amongst other varmints)
but the nights are cooling down.

Subject: RE: BS: Signs of Autumn
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Sep 20 - 07:40 PM

W have warm weather coming up but it looks like autumn in the environs of my garden because of a horrid resurgence of Dutch elm disease. It used to be one or two trees every year, but in the last couple of months we've lost five or six trees.