Yes, despite what all those fall foliage travelers tell you, there is a change of season here in Southern California. It is definitely more subtle then this East Coast girl is used to, but it does arrive, in mass, around the Thanksgiving time of the year. In my neighborhood it's this tall tree with a wide crown that was planted by the developer, so many of the houses have it. (I have been trying to do some research and this tree might be an ash tree). My house, unfortunately, doesn't have this one, but my next door neighbor does. It's small narrow leaves turn a stunning yellow, right now (see picture at the top of this post).
Another interesting tree is the Liquid Amber tree that grows very tall and narrow. I have a small one in my front yard, that will take at least another 15 years to mature, so for right now, it doesn't add to my local fall show with it's fiery dark red leaves, but other neighbors have them. There are several local streets that have this tree in mass and it looks very nice, when they are at the height of their color.
I used to have a poplar tree in my yard that had a nice yellow show of leaves, but unfortunately, the poplar sends out roots that grow new trees and in such a small backyard, I didn't need huge trees growing all over the side of my house. 1 was definitely enough. So one year we spent months pulling out all the roots on that tree. If you read my post several months ago about our putting in The Pond, this tree was part of the reason it took so long to install. It broke my heart to remove a tree that was so obviously healthy and thriving, but it had to be done.
The Poplar is a river tree that does well in that environment, because it has lots of land to grow these new trees via it's roots and it has obviously, shallow roots that enjoy the fact that the river has moisture in it. So the bottom line is, visit any "river" in Santa Clarita and you will find lots of poplars growing and right now, they all are sporting yellow leaves in abundance.
Is all these trees enough to start booking East Coasters on a fall folliage tour out this way, no, not by any means, but it is something.
In a good thing, the subtleness of the show, means we don't have huge amounts of leaves to rake, just a few of them. In L.A., where very little changes, it's good to see.
Hope you enjoyed the pictures and don't forget to right click to open them in a bigger window. You can see so much more detail that way.
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Photo Credit:
Most pictures were
taken in my neighborhood.
The poplar's are along the
bike trail in the
San Francisquito River.
The last shot is in the
Valencia Industrial Center.
Nice pics, Angel. Yeah, I for one didn't realize that there is any fall foliage display in southern Cal.
ReplyDeleteI was a little confused, though, when you started mentioning having had a "popular" tree. I thought maybe you meant the neighborhood kids liked to climb it. Then I realized you probably meant "poplar." Although Wikipedia says they are of the genus "populus" so I don't know why they wouldn't be called "popular" trees really, except maybe to avoid confusion with the term in the sense of being generally "well-liked."
Here's a Google search results page for poplar trees.
Sorry, I don't mean to go all nit-picky on ya. :-)
Happy post-Black Friday!
Hey Dim Skip!
ReplyDeleteHappy after Thanksgiving to you, too. :-)
ACK! I have never had to spell the word before, though I seem to know quite a bit about the darn tree. lol
Changed the spelling and thanks so much for the info. Always appreciate you caring enough to stop by.