Another Autumnal Blog

Autumn's finally arrived in a very big way here in Texas. The temperatures haven't--highs today around 80--but the most impressive trees are approaching peak display. As I mentioned in a previous blog, Texas does of some fall color.

One of my little treats as I drive around my town and in the hill country, is to notice color where I didn't know to expect it before. All summer long trees labor in the obscurity of green--most all are the same general color, especially as you drive by quickly in a car. It's not until autumn that each tree's individual attributes emerge from that obscurity.

I was driving down a street recently that I don't often take and lo and behold--two big tooth maples I wasn't aware of. Always a treat to find new trees to go back and visit each autumn.

Several years ago I was shocked to see vivid golden color of a 25-30 foot tall big tooth maple on the south side of the driveway leading into the Frost Bank in Boerne. Pictured above from two years ago, its trunk splits into two leaders about 8 feet up. I think it's Boerne's most magnificent big tooth. Because of pruning, or natural growth habit, the branches are high enough where you can walk underneath it. It's become my yearly barometer of fall color in these parts, and no autumn's complete without a visit to the tree. On a clear day with a blue sky, the gold-tinted light beneath it is impossible to describe.

Yesterday me and about 8 others, primarily from Boerne's Native Plant Society, planted about a dozen new trees and understory shrubs outside the Cibolo Nature Center in Boerne. Those holes didn't dig themselves, so it was lots of hard, sweaty work. In time though, it will yield more color and more native plants for locals or visitors to see and learn from as the years go by.

Planting a tree is one of the most optimistic things a person can do. The very act says "I believe in the future and I care about those who will follow. " They will be shaded by these trees and they will gaze in wonder at their leaves in the autumn and be thankful that someone cared enough to plant them. Thanks to the Cibolo for setting such a fine example for this community, and for encouraging its citizens to fine works like this. If the Cibolo didn't exist this town would be greatly changed, and clearly for the worse.

So get outside and drink in what nature's provided you.