Late Start to Leaf-Peeping Season

 

9/25/25 sweet gums, Green Lake

Usually by early October, leaf-peeping and -sketching season is at full bore, but this year the trees have been slow. While I’ve been spotting the occasional Japanese maple since the end of August, some maples are still mostly green (or going directly to brown, skipping the colorful stages). The Green Lake sweet gums that I try to sketch every year seem a bit behind schedule (above).

The Dayton Avenue maples in Greenwood (below) are at about the same stage as last year, though they have been trending later and later over the years.

9/30/25 Dayton Ave. NW, Greenwood neighborhood

Although I admire this bright red maple at Green Lake Park (below), it has not been on my general leaf-sketching tour, as it’s difficult to get a good composition of it. But since I’ve been jonesin’ for color and had brought along my Hahnemühle sketchbook on my walk with the purpose of catching some, I gave it a go. When there’s not much to actually “draw” in a composition like this, it’s fun to take a more Impressionistic approach.

10/7/25 maple, Green Lake Park

Perhaps the sunny days and cooler nights we’ve been having lately will give the slower trees a nudge. Why am I in such a hurry for the trees to turn? Admittedly, we've been having the kind of October that I usually envy other regions for because we rarely do: Sunny and warm and beautiful. Any day now, though, the weather could turn cold and wet, and that will be the end of the sketching part of the season. It’s a precarious time of year.