We had some mid to upper 20s here last week for a couple nights, but it didn't force the other ginkgo tree that's nearly 30 foot tall in our neighborhood to drop all its leaves

==>>> probably just the weather change .... i wouldnt be too concerned ... it just got too cold.. too fast ...

here in mi .... we had an incredible early cold snap .. i was noticing yesterday.. tooling around town.. over 60% of the trees still had their canopies.. and they were all dead brown ... then the wind started.. and they started falling ...

i wouldnt compare to a large older tree.. it creates its own microclimate under it ..... perhaps it stayed warmer under there.. so the color changed differently ...

fall color change is variable.. year to year ... and thats part of the beauty of trees ... its all normal ...

besides.. what could be done about it ..

ken

Appreciate your quick feedback, just odd that there was a noticable change but just to light brown. It was a pretty drastic change. About a week and a half ago, it was basically still green. That freeze got the change going big time, just to brown. Sometimes it being so young, i think that plays a big role into it. We went from not having a freeze yet to bam, mid 20s. so yeh. I am young but love Fall folliage, i also have a october maple in the yard and it's still young so just trying to create that perfect combination in my own front yard.

with trees.. we talk of tree time .. which is counted in decades ....

and beng seems to support the theory ... with his once in 14 years comment ...

i had autumn purple ash .. took years to actually get a purple autumn ... and after.. it didnt happen every year ... but as they did mature.. it did happen more often ... until one saturday morning.. i pulled out the chainsaw and cut them all down .. minutes before i would have called in a pro to do it ... EAB was the end of that dream ...

ken

Got ya, well yeh once in 14 years is real unfortunate. What parts of the country do you live in? and I'll just hope that as it matures, it'll do better i reckon!

In addition to seasonal considerations, weather/climate play a big role in leaf fall color changes. Warmer, milder climates tend to have less of a show....which is why folks flock to places like New England and not South Carolina to view fall color :-) And is also the reason, coloration is not uniform from year to year - neither is the weather!

A sharp freeze before the cessation of chlorophyll production and color change takes place can eliminate it entirely. And with temps into the 20's that could certainly account for the lack of any yellow coloration.....and the fact that the leaves remain attached. The larger, more mature tree in the neighborhood is less affected due to its longer establishment.

Most definitely, i always knew i wouldn't get the full benifit of the show here in SC, but i love the ginkgo! haha but yes, before the hard freezes hit, it was for the most part still green. It made drastic changes over the course of the last 7-8 days. Just not the changes i was hoping for but like you said with a larger more mature tree, i am hoping as it grows, the changes during the Fall will improve somewhat. Here's to hoping!

I would say that the Ginkgo display has not been great in recent years in my yard either (NJ/Zone 7). The leaves yellow, yes, but the display has been ridiculously brief. There is abnormal Autumn warmth and a big delay in any foliage changes for any deciduous trees, then there's been the sudden onslaught of killing frosts. So many trees go from summer green to frozen overnight some time in early November. The Ginkgo goes from Summer green to that gorgeous yellow, but it only seems to last a couple of days before they have all fallen.

"Warmer, milder climates tend to have less of a show....which is why folks flock to places like New England and not South Carolina to view fall color :-)"

The reason people flock to northern locations is not because of the temperature ranges but because the species of trees. Sugar Maples turn red, orange, yellow. Birch go yellow, and Red Maples are red in the fall. These species are absent from Southern landscapes. No matter how temps go up, down or stay warm, Southern species cannot reproduce the color palette visible in the Northeast.

Well, that's not exactly true :-) Red maples are native all the way down into Florida and into Texas so not at all absent from southern landscapes!! Same with river birch. And you completely overlook the fact that these trees are routinely planted in homeowner gardens across a very wide expanse of territory - we are not just talking about native stands. As an example, Japanese maples are planted in pretty much every state in the US and yet they do not develop the same intensity of coloring in Georgia in fall as they do in Massachusetts in fall.

btw, there are various species of trees native to the southeast that are known for having good fall color.........but they still tend to develop more intense coloring in more northerly locations. And that is due entirely to local weather and climate conditions.

I didn't make this up......it is very well documented.

In New England, a large percentage of trees produce a pigment known as an Anthocyanin, which results in brilliant reds and purples commonly seen around this time; a change that is particularly pronounced in the region's sugar maple trees.

Is your ginkgo a cultivar? I ask because in 10 years my G. 'Mariken' has never had what I'd call good ginkgo color. My neighbor's 50 footer, on the other hand, has had very reliable brilliant color. This year both lost all their green leaves at once on the same day.

"...but looking around on the web, i haven't seen a Ginkgo look like this..."

Mine has looked like that some years...face it, few take pictures of their bland trees in fall. ;-)

tj

I’m not to much of a tree wiz so I’m not sure it’s a cultivar or not. I bought it from a tree nursery not to far.

Ginkgo colors more reliably in Maryland where I live now, than in Ohio where I am originally from, which is opposite most species.

I think the issues that ginkgo stays green pretty late, but the leaves are more frost sensitive than most species.

In Ohi, they were killed by freezes about four years out of six from what I recall. a hard freeze makes them almost immediately drop, regardless of the color.

Here in Maryland, I would say about half the time they color well.

This year, about half of the ginkgoes I see colored and half didn’t before hard freezes hit.

Red maples are native all along the East Coast, and they do color all along the range, but they make up a tiny percentage of trees in the South. There are virtually no Sugar maples south of the Mason Dixon line, and the golds of Tamarack ( L. laricina) also do not go very far south. River Birch do not color up like White Birch. And almost no White Birch live very long south of the Mason/Dixon. Conversely, oaks in the wild forests north of Mass. are not that common.

You can spin it any way you want, the fact is fall temps in SC mimic New England, just later in the year. I would not say you made it up, (your documentation is lacking though), but I would ask you to review some of the statements you throw out. You obviously never have seen New England forests in the fall and compared them to fall colors in the Carolinas, GA or even MD and PA. In good years, the muted colors of southern climates are pretty, but the brilliant reds and golds from farther north are due to tree species. Tamarack, Sugar maples, White and Yellow Birch and Beech predominate in the hardwood areas. No list from Southern areas include those species as common.

Interesting debate. I think the climate patterns in the NE produce more consistently brilliant colors, fall over fall. It's more about that than the range of plant material _that is available_. (not common, just available. of course a lot of the south is southern pines, so not going to have much fall color) We might not have larches in MD, for example, but we have the same range of colors in areas with hardwoods. It's just that some years are better than others. There were years the maples in my yard were just as brilliant as they would be in New England, but not most years. This year was awful because of the early freeze, which hadn't had too many crisp cool nights before it.

You could design a garden for the SE with species that have good fall color in that climate, like Pistache chinensis, Japanese maples, etc. etc. (disagree with GG about those; I think they color up well in any climate, provided they are not hit by earlier freezes)

I see a lot of people saying there isn’t much Fall color in the SE. There is plenty of color down here. I’m sure it’s not as vibrant as the NE but there is still a lot of Fall color. This year was the best year in awhile also.

A pretty dumb thing to debate about, IMO. And I feel no compunction to provide you with evidentiary documentation....you are welcome to do your own research. I'd start with the US Forest Service first as they have a pretty thorough published discourse on the subject and very clearly state that aside from day length, local weather is the largest factor in determining the intensity of fall color. And it is not just the fall weather that affects the show but the weather patterns during much of the summer growing season, so making comparisons between New England weather patterns during fall and that of the southeastern states is pretty meaningless. They are NOT the same and there is even less of a similarity during the summer months.

We see this here rather consistently on the west coast. Fall color here is highly influenced by summer rainfall or the lack of it as well as mild temps entering into fall. The wetter the spring and summer and the more more extreme the daily temperature variations are as we approach fall, the better the fall color is. Northern areas of the PNW tend to get much better fall color than more southerly portions of the west coast as we are wetter and crisper :-) Early freezes are not really a factor as they are exceedingly rare here.....not even a hard frost yet and the beginning of December is rapidly approaching.

And yes, David, you can see this even with Japanese maples. They do not always color up uniformly here either. Some years - weather dependent - are much better than others.

Here’s my neighbor’s ginkgo tree on Halloween. We got a sudden cold snap and it snowed overnight. I took this picture at 8 am as the leaves were falling. By noon ALL the leaves were down. ALL.

Beautiful

I'm not sure it's "dumber" to debate than anything else we debate here LOL. The south both lacks the same range of deciduous hardwoods, and the climate...for optimal fall color. In a garden setting you can partly "override" that with the right species selections. IIRC, SFASU arboretum had some hardwoods they collected in mexico specifically for fall color, but I discussed it with Creech years ago and don't remember the details really. As for Japanese maples I cannot say how many costume dramas or non-fiction programs I've seen over the years, set in the UK, with a backdrop of blazing Japanese maple foliage in fall...so I'd always assumed they were one of the most reliable sources of it in maritime climates. I think I even noticed that when I was there in October of 1999...but that was a long time ago! You know the PNW far better than I do, so it sounds like out there, YMMV.

"A pretty dumb thing to debate about, IMO...", nonetheless you continue to throw out statements without a scintilla of evidence. Like the post where you told the poster that their plant would never fruit nor flower with the amount of sun it was getting, only to have the poster reply that it was replete with bloom a few years before. And then your continued snarky comments that Blue Spruce do not recover. I hope you open the post I make next summer with 2019 / 2020 pics of the one here. No experience growing them here, but you continue to hold yourself as an expert because of what a book tells you.

You continue to cling to your impossible position that the species are the same and the weather is different. So full of it I won't continue.

The weather here (Penn.) prevented any color at all on some trees this year. Butternut and Hickory had their leaves freeze in the green phase, no color at all, unless you count the light green they turned after frost. The several Japanese Maples were getting really red, but were cut off by the frost. This is what happens when the temps go from 90F to about 26F in 3 weeks. All the Japanese Maples still have their leaves, and only the strong winds (40mph, gusts higher) denuded the Hickories, Cypress and Oaks. Poor to no coloration on the hills around here. Only the Ginko shed like normal --- turning gold and then falling in a day or 2.

Davidrt28, the native Eastern Tamarack/Larch, L. laricina is almost absent from MD, except for a few in the tallest hills. Most of what we see are Japanese Larches, the European Larch, or hybrids. A large planting of these is on the east side of the lake in Codorus State Park in PA near the MD line. A rough rule of thumb is that if you get many nights above 70F, Larix laricina trees die. A tree weakened by the heat is also an attractive host for the Larch Casebearer, the scourge of North American larches..

Careful HU-435, davidrt28 is a long-time poster here & very knowledgeable -- particularly about larches and Maryland among many other things. He doesn't need a lecture from you or anyone else.

@HU-435404624, you don't know me, don't know my experience or educational background and you don't know where in the world I have gardened. You are very new to these forums so I would be hesitant to start throwing around criticisms and complaints about who knows what.

Because I am a garden educator and a consulting horticulturist, I research pretty thoroughly what I write before I write it........unless it is something that is well established as horticultural fact. Am I required to provided documentation for everything I post? I don't think so but then neither are you. If you question my comments feel free to do so but do your own research and documentation to contradict (and I notice that while contradicting you have not supplied any evidence to support your differing opinion.......so it's a requirement for me but not for you??)

And I challenge you to show any evidence supporting the notion that Picea pungens recover from needlecast. Bare branches will remain bare branches. And that it is not a serious issue limiting the planting of these trees across a wide swath of the country. A simple 30 second Google search will confirm that..........

Beng, certainly not a lecture. However, if anybody claims that the Euro or Japanese Larches color up like the native Eastern Larch, there had better be photos accompanying that. I'm not claiming david is reckless like other self proclaimed experts. He doesn't pontificate on plants growing where he has no experience. As a matter of fact, he has more than once backed away from answering questions he lacks expertise, unlike some. The fact remains, and he probably knows it, that Eastern Larch in MD and points south are almost never encountered unless you are in the higher ground of WV and MD.

So far as gg, she keeps beating her breast and proclaiming her 'expertise'. If you have to keep telling people you are a lady, then you probably ain't. She can keep right on whining. I'll only ever post one ore time, next year. After bud elongation on the Blue Spruce here, I will post pics and you can decide if it looks better or not. No amount of reading demonstrates her ignorance more than a couple of pics.

Edit, since the doyenne of everything correct is saying that I claim Blue Spruce recover from needle cast. I wrote:

"In about 2 more years, the nakedness of the tree will be much less noticeable, unless we get another round of endless rain like 2018."

And: "If conditions are less favorable for needle diseases, then the tree holds most of the new needles, and the tree appears better."

I also wrote: "I never said the affected branches recover, only that the continued growth on branches with good buds can mask the disease some years, and that given several years where conditions are bad for the fungus and good for tree growth, the tree regains decent looks."

NOWHERE, absolutely NOWHERE do I claim dead branches regrow or recover. That is her arrogance putting words in my mouth.

She has written : "IME, once contracting whatever form of needlecast may be present, they never look 'better' or the disease become less noticeable."

And: "Despite what others may report, once these trees develop any form of needlecast.....which they are highly inclined to do......they will never look "better"."

The pic next year will prove it looks better, no matter what armchair arborists claim.

HU*24,

"However, if anybody claims that the Euro or Japanese Larches color up
like the native Eastern Larch, there had better be photos accompanying
that"

I really want to understand what you are saying. Are you saying only native American larches can color nicely in the fall? So are you saying these photos are doctored?

https://www.alamy.com/larch-forest-in-autumn-in-the-val-de-salese-mercantour-national-park-alps-france-image247425603.html

https://www.google.com/search?complete=0&&q=larch+autumn+bernina+pass&tbm=isch&source=univ

"Ignorant"? Moi? I'm thinking you may be the ignorant party in this discussion :-)

These are only the first few articles that turn up with a Google search but there are dozens more out there. But then it appears that you do not believe what plant pathologists across the country have come to a pretty firm consensus about.

ISU Extension Serivce: "Once a tree is diagnosed with Rhizosphaera needle cast, the management tactics aim to reduce the spread of the disease to healthy tissue. One common misunderstanding about this disease is that once needles become infected they cannot be “cured”. Once needles are infected they cannot be healed or cured and will eventually fall off of the tree. One option for management of this disease is to simply not plant susceptible trees. In situations where spruce is the tree of choice, try to avoid blue spruce and take a look at Norway spruce as an alternative."

University of Minnesota extension publication: " Colorado blue spruce (Picea pungens) is highly susceptible and is commonly affected. Do not plant Colorado blue spruce (Picea pungens) or other spruce that are not well adapted to the environmental conditions in your area. Damage typically starts on the lower branches and moves up the tree. If the majority of needles are infected for 3 to 4 years in a row, the branch will die."

NMSU extension publication: " Rhizosphaera needle cast, a fungus disease caused by Rhizosphaera kalkhoffii, is primarily a disease of blue spruce (Picea pungens) trees in New Mexico. Infected needles turn yellow in July and then reddish-purple in August. The needles eventually turn brown and fall off one or more branches. A severely affected tree will have many bare branches. Premature needle drop is the primary damage, causing the tree to become unsightly. Branches that defoliate for four or five years may die. The disease usually attacks the oldest needles on branches in the lower portion of the tree canopy first and progresses upward, giving the appearance of death from the bottom up and inside out. If left uncontrolled, the disease can eventually kill the tree. "

Wisconsin Horticulture publication: " What is Rhizosphaera needle cast? Rhizosphaera needle cast is one of the most common fungal diseases of Colorado blue spruce. It can make Colorado blue spruce unsightly and unusable in many landscape settings. How do I avoid problems with Rhizosphaera needle cast in the future? The easiest way to avoid Rhizosphaera needle cast is to avoid planting Colorado blue spruce."

Morton Arboretum: " Rhizosphaera needle cast is a common foliar disease of spruces and other conifers caused by the fungus Rhizosphaera kalkhoffii. Colorado blue spruce is particularly susceptible and can be severely damaged by this disease. Heavily infected trees can suffer severe needle loss and branches may die as they become defoliated. Trees are rarely killed by Rhizosphaera needle cast, but several years of attack will take its toll and only the current season needles may remain. This disease can be frustrating because severe defoliation can occur quite rapidly and without indication that the disease is even present."

Penn Sate Extension publication: "Spruce often tend to lose lower branches and become unattractive with age, especially during periods of environmental stress, caused by drought and frequent rain. Recent wet weather years have been especially hard on spruce trees, as evidenced by the number of dying trees visible in local landscapes. A fungal disease affecting spruces is Rhizosphaera needlecast. Symptoms may first appear in mid- to late-summer as yellowing of the innermost needles on the middle to lower sections of the tree. These needles change from yellow, to brown, or purplish-brown and eventually fall off the tree. Because of susceptibility to this disease, less vulnerable conifers including concolor fir (Abies concolor), Oriental spruce (Picea orientalis), Serbian spruce (Picea omorika), and cultivars of Eastern red-cedar (Juniperus virginiana) should be used in preference to Colorado blue spruce."

And from an arborist website: " Sprays control the disease but do not cure it. The goal of treatment is to protect each season’s new growth from re-infection."