Changing Leaves - Backyard

This year has been a strange one in Michigan. The summer seemingly lasted forever, with warm temperatures pretty far into October. As a result, I feel like we didn't really get a "peak" time for the changing leaves. The trees that turn early due to fewer hours of daylight turned as they always do, and the trees that don't start to turn until the temperatures actually get cold didn't turn until much later - until after all the first trees had already completely lost their leaves. They didn't line up so that we saw multiple trees in full color at the same time; they were staggered and the effect was not as brilliant as it was last year.

We have a mulberry tree in our backyard that always turns late. Our subdivision doesn't have lawn bag removal services after the first week in December, and in years past it has been a bit of a time crunch to get the last few leaves raked up and bagged and put out on the curb before the service stops and we're stuck with bags of leaves all winter. This year, it'll be even worse. It's already November, and nearly all of our mulberry tree is still green-leaved - just like the grass, which is green and was still growing long into October. Maybe the leaves will finally fall off by Christmas.

Thankfully, our neighbors have a maple tree that turns amazing reds and yellows every year, so I got my color fix that way. We also have several burning bushes, some of which finally started to turn red in late October.

Here are some of my favorite photos taken in and from my backyard - of our burning bushes, our neighbor's maple tree, a weedy yellow tree we have growing near the sidewalk, and the view of the autumn trees across the street, lining the property of the fire station behind our house.