Out back

I’m not speaking of Australia’s Outback. I mean my suburban backyard. For a change, I actually have a view of sorts. Fall has finally crept out of the high country and into the city, and there’s a tree on the street behind me that positively glows in the morning sun.

I’m referring specifically to the glorious tree on the left, although the one on the right is none too shabby. I just don’t have a good view of it.

I don’t know what kind of tree that is but the next time I’m over there I’m going to take a close look and try to identify it. (I just read that female Red Maples turn yellow/orange. Maybe that’s it.) And to think I might have had something similar if I’d just planted it the day I moved in (2008 as I recall). Homes in this subdivision were built in 2001 and all got big street trees, albeit saplings at the time. But a previous owner of this house butchered his tree and it was so misshapen that I had it removed. I probably violated HOA rules when I replaced it with a redbud (state tree of Oklahoma, where I’m from) but so be it.

I do still have two aspens out back, well over 30 feet tall I’d guess, but they are turning more brown than yellow and look pretty sad. I’m afraid I may lose them in the next year or two, much like the first one that died.

My own backyard color consists of one small patch, seen on the right.

Impressive, eh? That’s a pear tree, perhaps 20 ft tall. Would be nice if the whole thing went red like this, but I don’t recall it doing anything notable in the past. I don’t even know what kind of pear it is. I researched carefully to avoid the notoriously brittle ones, but the “landscaper” who put in all my plantings seems to have been oblivious to my specifications/requests. I suspect he grabbed the first tree he saw labeled “pear”(no doubt one of the cheaper ones) and paid no attention to the variety. Likewise I’d specified “columnar aspens” for the narrow side yard and he just put in regular ones that I had to have removed a few years later. Then there were the “dwarf” hollies across the front of the house. Four of them (not even all the same kind!), but all determined to reach 5 or 6 feet or more if I don’t pay to have them cut back. I had in mind the dwarf yaupons I had in Oklahoma that never got more than maybe 18″. Lessons learned, I suppose.

I can’t account for all the color this year. Perhaps a particularly favorable weather year. Or maybe my increasingly faulty memory. But either way, I can’t complain.