Cherry On the Top

Years ago, when I first moved into this house, I was impressed with the fall colors that appear in my woods.  The tulip poplar trees are the first to change, dressing their leaves in deep yellow.  This is followed by the red-buds which also turned a golden hue.  Then the dogwoods blush in a deep blood red.  The oaks compete with their rust red colors which glow when the sun hits them in the late afternoon.  In various corners the sassafras burns bright red almost painful to the eyes.  The native maple trees are arbitrary in their color change depending on rain and temperature, some autumns they start outlines of red and then fall to the ground and darken to red-brown, while on optimal autumns they become the reddest of the reds putting all the other trees and shrubs to shame.  The hollies and cedars and the slash pines stand in the chorus line and continue their rich backdrops of forest green in this autumnal painting. 

Yet, despite the inconvenient truth of global warming, I was not totally satisfied with this group of show-offs and wanted a sugar maple to add that peach red color that is not found in any of my native trees.  Three years ago, in the fall, I paid $60.00 and planted a 6 foot high twig of a sugar maple that appears to be grafted onto another type of root maple.  This year she has taken the diva role.

At first she was a little shy and just blushed, because she is so small and the fig in front of her is such a big bully of a robust tree.

 

But just like any happy four-year-old, once she gets her prettiest dress on, she is ready to take center stage.

And when the sun tickles her directly, it makes her laugh out loud and forget her lines.  Unfortunately, this week, the nasty wind is tearing most of the ribbons from her hair and it is getting time to take the final bow for this performance.