Time. Moments. Experiences. Desires. Relationships. It is inevitable that many things in life fade. It prevents stagnation within ourselves and ecologically. Yet, it is often a double-edged sword. The reality of fading is what makes life precious; it is the realization that we cannot relive what is most significant. We cannot relive the moments that make up a life of memories. We cannot hit the reset button on the moments that form us into the people we are. This brings the ever shifting and uncontrollable dynamic of sorrow and joy. This may be a deeper reality than what some people consider when they see the fall leaves, but this is where my thoughts go at least once each fall. The ecology of our world often mirrors human life more than we would like to admit. But it does, precisely because we are part of the world’s ecology. Humanity has become functionally separated and cognitively distant from the world around us, but it is what allows us to both survive and thrive. So, this year as I pay attention to the leaves, I have become even more aware of their fading.
Our ancestors lived more closely with the land. This awareness and connection to the land was not just lived poetics or art as it now can be, but it was functional life. Modern indigenous and subsistence cultures that still rely on a close connection to the natural world also understand this. I find a deep value in this as a biologist, photographer, and an HSP. There is a deep significance in the shifting seasons marked by the waning sunlight and deciduous leaves that defer their existence to the shifting of time. Environmental color changes mean the end of a growing season. The halting of certain food production. Reduced access to environmental light and heat. It is traditionally a time when humanity had to rest along with the earth. It is a halting. It is a respite. It is a fading.
I have spent some time hiking this fall, but something just seems different this year. Today, I realized it is the trees.
The last two weeks of October are often the peak of the fall leaf colors in the higher elevations of the southern Appalachians. The NC Piedmont usually peeks one or two weeks later. So why is it lagging behind this year? In fact, it seems to have been lagging or unpredictable for several years. To answer that we have to consider why leaves change color at all.
The common knowledge that was shared by my grandparents when I was growing up was that leaves changed color when “it got cold;” this is not untrue, but it’s not the whole story. The fact that they change is not dependent upon the ambient temperature. The change itself occurs due to something referred to as photo period.
Photo period is simply a scientific term for how long the days are — or how long plants are able to access the sunlight they need to perform photosynthesis. We may not think about photosynthesis in relation to deciduous trees losing their leaves, but this is precisely why they do. If you think about it, deciduous leaves typically have more surface area than coniferous needles. It takes more energy production on the part of the tree to maintain the presence of larger leaves — the photosynthetic catalyst. So, instead of adapting to smaller needles like conifers (which do hang on to most of their needles year-around, although they shed some in the winter), deciduous trees have adapted to drop their leaves entirely. They do so when the photo period becomes too short for the tree’s energy output for maintaining the leaves to be offset by the photosynthetic opportunities provided by a longer day.
So, leaves change color because of shorter days. Not colder temperatures. However, the color, vibrancy, predictability, and even shift across large forest scapes depends upon consistent seasonal temperature decreases and the moisture content of the soil in which they grow.
When a shorter photo period and colder temperatures coincide more consistently, the leaves on deciduous trees change color in a more sweeping or simultaneous process. The cold helps to set the color in the leaves. Higher moisture content in the soil allows the trees to hang on to more colorful leaves longer before they drop off. If the soil moisture is low and the temperatures are sporadic, then the leaves do not change simultaneously. The leaves also have a tendency to begin molding or rotting while still on the tree.
I began writing this when the leaves should have been at height of their peak. They are just now beginning the start of the peak. There are mostly yellow leaves so far. I have seen fewer shifts into the red spectrum, often seen in maple trees. This year, the leaves are also not dropping and changing simultaneously on individual trees. Many individual trees have lost some leaves, have some that have changed color, and other leaves that are still green.
It is becoming harder and harder to predict the changing of the leaves. To obtain good photographs, or to travel and enjoy the magnificent display one must be more diligent at simply watching the shift in real time. It is harder and harder to plan seasonal trips to enjoy the fall leaves in the mountains. Trips planned and scheduled six to twelve months in advance may leave you still looking at a green forest or a ground full of decaying leaves after they fell.
Seasons have always been a way of marking time. The temperatures, tree colors, and snow pack have always corresponded to specific times of year with some measure of predictability. Those very things have so often been a source of joy and beauty for so many. Yet, their reliability is waning.
This is precisely the reason I call this blog the Fading of the Fall Leaves. We are seeing a larger ecological shift. Not one that happens once a year, but one that is a shift after centuries of measurable predictability. This is a generational ecological shift.
The leaves are no longer a marker we can predictably rely upon to usher us into the joy of the harvest seasons. Our own created calendars have more regularity than the world around us.
I am not a climatologist or a tree scientist. So I don’t want to claim to be what I am not. Yet, I do hold a degree in Wildlife Biology. I am a skilled researcher. I once earned a living as an environmental/ ecological educator. I also have spent the last eight years closely working with generations of farmers and rural communities who have seen many more fall seasons than I have. Many of them still live by the seasons in a way most people do not. When enough of them say the colors aren’t the same this year for enough years in a row, you pay attention.
I also saw the sudden shift to inconsistency when I lived in the heart of the southern Appalachians. It may not yet be as noticeable in the north east where temperatures get colder sooner. We may not have dull fall colors every year with temperature inconsistencies.
For now, I am still chasing the fall leaves. I still find peace and joy in the shift of the seasons. I am still looking for that “perfect” fall photograph that tells the story of the changing of the seasons and marks time the way it always has. Yet, I know that it will not be the way it was when we had greater measure of ecological stability.
As the leaves fade this season, I wonder how many more seasons we will see the sweeping shift of vibrant colors across the mountains and colder climates. Will people still travel to Appalachia and the Rockies to see the shifting colors, or will the fading leaves lead to travel in vain hope? Can events like this still be reversed? My own climate anxiety has to say, “yes.” But I also believe we are at a tipping point.
Digital enhancement and social media may also not tell the whole story. As a photographer, I know it is so much easier to make color adjustments to photos now than it was with film photography. Skilled photographers may spend hours scouting locations and frame the photo just right to depict a tree or forested trail that is at the peak of its’ color shift. I am all for this as a photographer. It is art that tells a story. It is beautiful. But it also tells the story of a limited space. It may not reflect the many trees near by that have a range of color shifts. This blog and what is viewed on the other side of the camera lens are meant to tell two different stories. The focused story on social media is the one that gets seen most often.
In years to come, what will our minds tell us when we do have a year of predictable weather? Our minds are incredible catalysts for creating our sense of reality. Our minds are wired for a cognitive bias as part of our survival mechanism. We naturally fill in the gaps of our psychological world to create a sense of safety. This may lead us to a bias of simply not seeing a negative shift that happens over a long time. But without a doubt things are changing. The fall colors are certainly not gone in earnest. But how will our minds perceive the shifts and unpredictability from year to year? Will they perceive what is happening, or will they harken us back to a time when the environment was more stable? If we want ecological stability in the future with leaves that continue to fade with some predictability, we must all make change.
The world is what we make it. We are not isolated from the world’s ecology. If we want our children to chase the bright and vibrant leaves of the fall and excitedly wait for the snow as we did, then we must drastically deviate from the course we are on. Consumerist, ecological, political, and cultural shifts must all be made.
Like Aspen groves that are confirmed to be one living organism, these changes must happen globally. We are small parts of an inescapably interconnected world.
I long for the next generations to see the beauty of the natural world that I have seen. They long for it already with a deep love for wildlife and wilderness. But I question what will be there for them to enjoy and marvel at in twenty years.
My grandparents always used to say when big life events seemed imminent, but were not quite here, “we will cross that bridge when we come to it.” We are on the bridge of ecological degradation. We are on the bridge of certain things “fading” into history. I hope it is a fading that will not continue. Is there a way to hit the reset button this time?
What’s on the other side of the bridge? I know what I hope for, but I can’t yet see what will be there.
