When/if we lose our white ash, one of the things we will most miss is the stage when it coats the backyard with a layer of rusty gold. All the leaves are down as of this morning (windy, rainy night last night....!) All the leaves will get raked into the garden beds and left to decompose in place to the advantage of the woodland plants there. But the leaves are beautiful where they are at the moment - the views from the living room window this morning:
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I'm quite worried about the red oak - you can see a bit of it in the first two pictures. A couple of the lower branches had their leaves turn suddenly brown about two weeks ago - the rest of the leaves have not started to change color yet and the change on these ones looked more like the leaves dying than a fall color change. If we lost both the ash an oak in the backyard, that would be a rather radical change in the environment there!