Our Neighborhood is Ablaze in Color

This beautiful fall afternoon begged for a walk along our neighborhood trail and capture the fall colors that are at their peak. We had a very mild summer and plenty rain in the last couple of months. This has created one of the best fall color seasons in many years. One of the things we missed while we lived in south Texas was the beautiful fall colors. The trail looks so much different than it did when I featured it in an earlier blog "Happy Trails". That entry had pictures of late spring and summer. The fall photos here are from the trail and the streets in the neighborhood on the way to the trail. We live in Carrington Place which is in St. Peters, Missouri near St. Louis.

A popular shrub that decorates many of the neighborhood yards is very green in the summer and turns fire engine red in the fall. This first photo is of the bush at the back of our house. It is not quite as red as many others in the neighborhood.

Here is a good selection of this red bush around our neighborhood.



All the beautiful fall colors could be found around the neighborhood. Yellow, orange, and bronze.

Yellow
The best yellow color was just about 4 houses south of us on our street.
Orange



Bronze

Several colors together.

Someone thought it was a great day for jogging with the baby along the trail.

In many places it is hard to see the trail for all the leaves that is covering it.

Pretty decorative grass in a lawn along the trail.

A fall-halloween banner on a fence along the trail.

Berries on a bush along the trail.

Sumac Bush along trail.

The puckered, fluorescent green fruit of the Osage Orange Tree is plentiful along parts of the trail. They've been known to be called; hedgeballs, hedgeapples, monkey balls, osage orange, mock oranges, horse apples, brainfruit, and green brain. Some say that if you place the hedge ball in your cupboards, on the floor in your basement and garage, and around the outside of your house it will keep spiders and insects away.

Crab apple berries in our back yard.

Tulip popular tree in our back yard.


We have a beautifully shaped Bradford Pear in our front yard.

It has pretty white flowers in the spring.

The small fruit is very popular with the birds.

The leaves will turn to a bright red in late fall. Ours has not changed to it's fall color.

Looking at all the great fall colors made our 2.8 mile walk a lot more enjoyable.

We hope to take a drive out in the country to see more of the pretty fall colors along the hillsides.

As a chemist, I can't skip the chemistry behind fall leaf color change. The simple answer - The pretty colors show up when leaves quit producing chlorophyll as the weather turns colder. No longer masked by abundant green chlorophyll, these less abundant pigments can now show their true colors.

Some of the pigment chemicals involved:

Several good links to websites about the science of fall leaf color change:

Chemical of the Week-The Chemistry of Autumn Colors

The Science of Leaf Change: Why do Leaves change colors?

Why There is a Fall Leaf Color Change in Autumn

A Complete Fall Color and Autumn Leaf Guide: Enhancing Your Autumn Leaf and Fall Tree Viewing.

More on trees with colorful fall foliage.

Fall Foliage of Ash Trees
Fall Foliage of Aspen Trees
Fall Foliage of Beech Trees
Fall Foliage of Birch Trees
Fall Foliage of Dogwood Trees
Fall Foliage of Japanese Maple Trees
Fall Foliage of Oak Trees
Fall Foliage of Shagbark Hickory Trees
Fall Foliage of Sweetgum Trees
Fall Foliage of Sumac Trees
Fall Foliage of Ginkgo Biloba Trees
Fall Foliage of Tulip Trees