Straight to Red

9/24/24 Green Lake neighborhood

Since I always have trees on my mind during the fall color season, I thought it would be fun to combine that theme with my ongoing street trees project. Conveniently, Taha Ebrahimi’s book, Street Trees of Seattle, has a good index, so I looked up some types of trees I knew to have good fall color. I thought it might be too early for most maples except Japanese, but a bigleaf was just on the south end of Green Lake – an easy drive to see how it was doing.

As I suspected, its color was disappointing. However, just a block or so away, I found a different type of maple. I don’t know its variety, but I’m familiar with the way that it skips yellow and orange and goes straight to red with a silvery underside to the leaves. Right next to it was another tree that was going from lime to lemon.

Crepe myrtle

Meanwhile, a bunch of crepe myrtle shrubs growing nearby were stealing the color show with their brilliant magenta flowers and berries. When most flowers are long past, they are just getting started. I noted their location so I can go back soon to sketch them, too. I love this time of year!