Thursday, October 28, 2010

Fall is here

Fall is here in full force. The key indication is that my living room is chock-full of houseplants right now, thanks to a freeze warning tonight. Three boxes have already been moved to the new house, mostly the amaryllis and a few others. The amaryllis aren't going to bloom this Christmas, since I forgot to head them towards dormancy back in September. I'll just have to feed them up for a while and try next year. Maybe, if I put a note in my dayplanner, I'll actually remember to stick them in a closet next fall.

For the past month or so, it's been hazardous to stand under any nut-bearing tree in the area. It's a bumper year for the pin oak crop - the ground outside under our pin oak is about 50% covered with acorns. A few weeks ago, every time the wind blew it sounded like a hailstorm as acorns were plinking off the metal roof of the carport. The shagbark hickory trees at the preschool playground were worse though - the nuts in the hull are about the size of a golf ball, and they come down with some energy. I've seen a few hit the ground hard enough to bounce a bit, and sometimes the hull will split as they hit.

No plant casualties in the area from the recent winds, but I did see a flowering pear casualty on the way to preschool this morning. It had just tipped over into a parking lot, no roots showing at all. They're pretty trees and they grow fast, but they're notoriously weak when it comes to wind, root systems, or dropping random limbs. I've heard of flowering pears falling over at the hint of a breeze. My sister had a large-ish pear tip over onto her Mustang a few years back. No wind, the tree just fell over. Luckily the car wasn't hurt, but it's still kind of freaky.

Unluckily, the tree shading most of our deck at the new house? Flowering pear, about 15 years old, which is about the time they start getting iffy. This one is in the lee of the house, so hopefully it won't fall over anytime soon, but one of the tentative plans for next year is to replace it with something a little sturdier. As part of that plan, we're going to pick up a few quarts of Bud's acorns (yes, the tree has a name) and try to sprout some. Part of those will go to family members who could use a few good trees too - I may be biased, but Bud has a very nice shape, is healthy, turns a lovely orangey-yellow color in the fall, and sounds very peaceful in a slight breeze. Trust me, if he wasn't 30 or so feet tall, I'd be sorely tempted to dig him up and move him to the new house.
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