There are some people that do not look forward to the end of summer, but as I grow older, fall has become my favorite time of the year for many reasons. Besides the cooler nights, no one can argue that at the end of September into October the landscape changes and the color of the trees that no picture can duplicate jump out at you. For that reason, a large number of people will travel to the Northwoods just to experience those brilliant red, purple, yellow and orange leaves from trees woven within the evergreens. Now, I’m not a BOTANIST, but those awesome colors are caused by three pigments, which are CHLOROPHYLL, CAROTENOID and ANTHCYANIN. I’m not a scientist either and I might get some of this wrong, but even though those awesome colors mean the death of leaves, this is how these colors come to life.

In the spring and summer (GROWING SEASON) leaves produce chlorophyll & carotenoid, but the chlorophyll pigment covers the carotenoid, so the leaves stay green. Shorter days and colder nights, trees produce less chlorophyll and then stops, and the carotenoid pigment comes through, changing the green to yellow and orange on some trees. Oak trees, their veins that carry fluid to the leaves slowly close and cells form at the base of each leaf that traps sap/sugar and this promotes anthocyanin that produces the red & purple leaves and the only thing that could stop all this from happening is a severe frost. There you have it, and this is why we can see all those fantastic fall colors, I think.

Those who do not want the summer to end l understand.  Many folks in parts of the mid-west don’t look forward to fall and the beginning of the winter months because flowers die, grass turns brown, all the trees are bare and look dead, so yes, I can see why fall can be a little depressing for some. But thanks to the massive number of evergreens, even after the trees that produced those awesome colors go dormant, the Northwoods is still looks alive and green.

Evergreens use chlorophyll to capture sunlight, and this chlorophyll also is the reason their green all year, but the needles store and conserve water and even though they stay green during the winter, evergreens are basically hibernating. Will evergreens lose their needles? Sure, they do, but not all at once. If you take a walk in the woods (or my yard) in the fall, you will see brown (DEAD) needles everywhere, but new needles are growing (LIGHTER GREEN AT THE END OF THE STEM) as old needles fall off. Then, the wax like coating on the needles makes evergreens resistant to the cold weather and can even withstand frost. Snow also helps insulate evergreens from extreme weather, when snow forms a blanket around the base of the evergreens to keep the roots warmer. All I can say is, the colors are getting close to giving us that awe factor and I won’t mind the bare trees, because we have evergreens. Enjoy the next few weeks and take pictures.