Our neighborhood (mid-Atlantic U.S.) has red maples all up and down the street, planted all at the same time when the development was created seven years ago. Many of my neighbors’ trees are a beautiful rich red, but mine are green. The edges are starting to turn brown. This happened last year, too. The colors never changed, the green leaves just gradually dropped off through the fall and winter. These are tall trees, about 25 ft (7.5 m). The trees are in front, and my house faces due north. I am wondering if the orientation relative to the sun has something to do with it. The street is curved so every house has a slightly different orientation, but I don’t see any clear relationship of orientation to tree appearance. The summer here was very dry, although I have an in-ground sprinkler system.
What can I do next year to encourage my trees to join the Fall Color Club?
Two possibilities. Your neighbors watered more than you did.
Or, you’ve got a different kind of maple tree. They don’t all turn those glorious colors. How long have you lived in the house? Is this only the second fall you’ve been there, and now you’ve realized that your trees aren’t turning colors?
Trees turn color based on the climate and the length of the day, but AFAIK orientation towards the sun doesn’t have much to do with it. And anyway you can’t transplant a seven-year-old 25-foot-tall maple tree, not without a front-end loader and a backhoe.
We all have the same trees. The subdivision was all built and planted at the same time in 1995. I moved in mid-construction that year. I guess it’s possible that they used more than one variety of tree but they are all supposed to be red maple. I’ve been there 7 years and have noticed this before but this time it’s really bugging me.
I mention the orientation of the sun because, especially in winter months, the front of my house is nearly always engulfed by the shadow of the house itself. I have not studied how much of this shadow falls across the trees, nor its path in summer months. A side effect is that snow and ice on my driveway never gets direct sun so takes forever to melt.
If watering makes a difference, then next year I will make a special effort to water the trees, rather than just depending on the sprinklers to do the job.
My Japanese professor last year bought a red maple so the fall color would remind her of home.
Except, she didn’t get any fall color.
She asked the people where she bought it, who told her that evidently the tree has to get enough sunlight to turn. I don’t know if this is true, but it seems plausible. I was under the impression that the leaves turn because of, um, sugars formed in the tree or something?
Anyway, this was all illustrated with beaucoup kanji, which I have neglected to share with you. Except that the kanji for “fall” I never quite noticed seems to be a tree and fire. I find this extremely charming.