I seem to be on a leaf and garden kick. Though two short cold snaps have sent 99% of the plants into dormancy (unless they’re evergreen), a few brave stalwarts instead focus on the above-average warm weather to pop one last bloom out. November 3-9 ranged 65-75F with just a dash of rain the final two days. And then the 12th through 16th blessed us with sunny days of 64-73F. Look at these little troupers:
I took a walk this morning as the newly risen sun filtered through the tops of trees. The ethereal lighting isn’t quite captured here, sadly. Nice to see the natives doing well.
Unlike most years here in central North Carolina, temperatures have been colder than normal and our first hard frost occurred this morning. The above photo from November 24th last year, shows the glory of our lone non-native tree to survive The Culling, a.k.a., the landscaping project of 2024-25. This year it still retains red leaves but they are dulling. Dogwood, which in years past held onto their dusky maroon-colored leaves, now stand bare, attesting to the weather with a solitary leaf here and there. Plants closer to the ground now are yellowing and soon will follow the trees.
On the personal front, fall seems an apt term the past two years. At this time last year we were winning our battle against Covid, entering our third week in its grip. This year a Covid-like virus laid me low all of October 26th through November 2nd, and its nasty little cousin showed up yesterday, an intestinal thing. (“Detestinal” thing?)
Dry, sunny weather accompanies these low temperatures, providing a yin to the biting yang of it. Our bird world changes almost overnight: the year-rounders come back to the feeders to start bulking up, others disappear, and soon birds of prey will become more prominent on their leafless perches. Last week a raven lingered in front of the house, a surprising sight.
This year brought an unusual amount of treework in our near neighborhood. Trees and large limbs fell frequently during unusually rainy weather this summer. Fearful homeowners culled trees simply because they stood near the owners’ houses. A red oak ‘shared’ with our neighbor—it has managed to grow across the property line—dropped a limb the size of a small tree onto the neighbor’s driveway in a spot which had held a car until a week or two before the limb fell. Our good friends around the corner were not so lucky, losing a vehicle when a limb fell on a minivan about six weeks ago.
NC weather continues its wonderfully contrarian ways, at least to born, bred, and experienced Northerners (a.k.a. “Yankees!” as the Southern epithet is uttered). Temperatures promise to level out and this coming weekend will rise as high as 76. Any day after Halloween which promises temperatures in the 70’s (let alone the 60’s) seems to be a gift, even after living here nearly 20 years. And the most anticipated weather event for the coming months? The knowledge that someday in our near, winter-weary future, a singular weather pattern will convince a 70+ degree day to appear in late December or January. Always a welcome respite, even if its appearance always remains a cameo.
With all apologies to Huey Lewis & and The News, I need a new song. Its lyrics will borrow from the Rolling Stones: “You can’t always do what you want,….but if you try sometimes, you just might find—you do what you need.” Yeah. That. We were told once to pay attention to our Inner Child, and I’ve done that far, far too much in my life. That little pouty bastard gets everything he wants to my usual detriment. I’m going to start listening to my Inner Parent. Maybe I’ll graduate to Inner Adult. (transactional analysis—I can’t escape the cultural references.)
Anyway, it’s fall y’all. The dusky red of the dogwood illumines in direct sunlight and dances a colored jig with the wind-bestirred poplar leaves behind them.
Our weather this summer has been a bit topsy-turvy to me. June’s usual onslaught of highly humid, hot days which normally starts after my birthday on the 8th, arrived instead in the final days of May. July, a month that has seen weeks-long streaks above 100 was hot again but avoided the triple-digits. The official high temps, nevertheless, hit the 90’s every day but two, and we started to collect our normal rainfall (in fact, a little extra).
August, though, should have continued the hot weather and brought some brushes with tropical storms. Instead, the month opened with a high or 86, then 79, and high temps stayed in the 70’s six more days after that. We collected over 5.33 inches of rain in the first 11 days. The entire month easily bested our normal rainfall total 7.99 inches versus 4.71 inches. We saw the 90’s only once, on the 17th, when the thermometer got to 92 while we were in Belgium. The weirdness continued when the humidity broke weeks early—usually it’s the second week of September—and overnight lows descended into the 60’s and 50’s never to rise above 70 again as I write this on the 12th.
As mentioned, September normally sees the departure of high humidity and the extension of lovely days in the 80-85 degree range. Instead, we started with lows in the 50’s and high’s in the 70’s except for a four-day streak of 84-94. Things dry out in the rainfall department normally, too, with the usual rainfall being about two inches. We’re on pace for that.
Even the tulip poplars think it’s weirder. Normally they start to get stressed in July and drop a lot of yellowed leaves. This year, only a smattering fell then and continued through August. When the way cooler temps of September came, they acted as if we’d crossed the equinox, nights were getting crisper, and large numbers began to fall: not yellowed this time but a leathery brown. IT’S NOT FALL YET, I want to scream at them, but by most measures we are crossing that threshold now, not in early to mid-October per my observation of usual.
I had thought the broad strokes of climate changes meant an accented version of our normal curve: hot months would be hotter, cold months would be a little more mild, and we would see more rainfall here in the American Southeast. I did NOT expect we would just take all the normal readings, throw them in a hat marked “Your Weather,” and pull them out randomly!
At least the blossoms have come out on the roses of Sharon, but they are later this year. Contrary to the wishes of my native plants landscaper, I will not be removing all of these beauties, aggressive invaders though they be. (Honestly, they’re growing under a porch, behind the garbage bins, anywhere and everywhere.)
Like so many things in the American South, the arrival of autumn takes its own sweet time. I should say “fall” also because at two syllables, both of which have a “u” in them, it just seems a bit pretentious here. Our first inkling summer is nearing its end (besides a simple look at the calendar) occurs when “someone turns the humidity off” as a former boss of mine put it. (He was from Michigan.) Humidity levels build quickly in early June, and by mid-month your A/C chokes on the amount of water it’s removing from your indoor atmosphere. Around Labor Day a similarly rapid decline in humidity takes place. It seems even quicker than the ramp up because the lack of humidity means heat no longer lingers around all night, ready to leap into action at dawn. Instead of staying in the high 60’s and low 70’s suddenly one’s body registers temps that are downright cool at dawn. What follows seems like a coda to the summer, a time of 72-80 degree weather, mostly sunny weather, and dawn temperatures in the low 50’s.
For me fall can be said to be truly here when leaves start to turn color. Except for stressed trees and shrubs, this usually occurs around the second to third weekend in October. Even then it’s a slow, drawn out affair. This cluster of leaves seemed representative to me. We’re in the last week of October, and the trees reluctantly turn various colors dependent on species.
We arrived home Monday after a quick dash north for a wedding, when I realized, “Hey the dogwood is really turning color.” One of the first to herald spring with its blossoms, and one of the first to leaf out, it’s also one of the first to say, “Nope, gettin’ a mite too cold. Goodbye.”
And finally this photo to illustrate the sadness of invasive species. The Virginia creeper is native to central and eastern North America. It knows that it’s fall here. The English ivy isn’t native to North America at all. The latter will hang around nearly all winter, and in milder winters I believe I haven’t seen it turn colors at all. It chokes out most undergrowth if allowed, and it adds weight to trees if allowed to proliferate. It creates an eco-desert.
all the voices in my head 