Not quite deciduous

Posted by Kate Copsey Jan 30, 2007

I strange thing hit me today - my oak tree, a white oak, like many white oaks around here, still has brown leaves on it. Oaks are deciduous trees and in the north they do the normal thing of turning brown then in some almighty early winter storm they all come off. Not so in the south. The white oak turns the usual copper brown in the fall, but the leaves do not fall off until spring. I had wondered if the mild winter was the reason, but no, this is normal for this specific oak tree.

This is another example of how climate can change the way a tree or shrub behaves. If we live and grow in the same climate or zone, we become accustomed to thinking that this is the way the shrub will behave wherever it resides. Some things like Butterfly bushes are killed above ground in the northern zones and come back from the root, yet further south they are pruned each spring to reduce the height of the bush before spring growth starts.

These little things take time to become accustomed too, but it gives another dimension to growing when you are faced with these quirks, and can marvel in how nature adapts without a fuss.