Something Wild host Dave Anderson with the Forest Society says the Granite State is experiencing ideal conditions, setting up “a spectacular and prolonged fall foliage season.”
“The summer had ample rainfall to ease the drought over the hottest months of July and August, but without the downpours that create fungal diseases that affect tree leaves.”
He also notes that the Atlantic Basin Hurricane Season has been fairly quiet this hurricane season.
“Barring any major tropical weather systems and with continued warm autumn days and cool nights, and a persistent dome of high pressure,” he says, “we could be looking at a few long weeks of perfect foliage conditions and a slow ripening and falling of leaves.”
“We’re in the ‘Goldilocks Zone’ in terms of the influence of summer weather on the condition and duration of fall foliage,” he says. “It's going to be an awesome foliage year!”
Foliage brilliance
The most iconic trees for foliage brilliance are the northern hardwoods: white birch, yellow birch, birch, beech, and both the crimson sugar maples and red maples in wetlands.
The red maples with “wet feet” that grow in forested wetlands and in swampy areas of southern New Hampshire and the seacoast tend to be the last to leaf out and the first to turn color in late summer. They are harbingers of fall, showing the first tinge of color to come.
You may have noticed black polka-dotted maple leaves in southern New Hampshire.
Anderson says non-native Norway maples, most common in Portsmouth, Nashua, Manchester and Concord, are horticultural plantings or trees that have naturalized all over southern New Hampshire.
The leaves look like a wider version of our native sugar maple trees.
The polka-dots are a fungus that causes “black tar spot” on Norway maples. It begins as early as July, and rarely harms the long-term health of mature trees. Raking up and disposing of fallen leaves can help reduce the spores in following years.
The big picture for fall foliage
The forests of the Monadnock Region and Upper Valley, the Lakes Region and White Mountains are mixed hardwood species along with conifers like white pine and hemlock for green color contrast.
In the higher elevations of the White Mountains and across the North Country, the maples and beech are found on lower slopes. Yellow birch leaves color the mid-slopes with dark green balsam fir, red spruce and black spruce at the higher elevations.
Anderson says “The colors are already picking up momentum north of the Notches. I took a trip last week up to Gorham and Shelburne and the colors were just coming into focus.”
Anderson says these seemingly inanimate leaves speak to us and our own “inner foliage season.”
“There is something nostalgic about autumn, the changing and falling leaves, the fall traditions. Billions of inanimate leaves create the ultimate metaphor for the seasonal cycles of life and death and renewal,” Anderson says.
“I think the sight of the New Hampshire hills and mountains cloaked in a calico quilt of colorful leaves triggers some kind of vestigial instinct or genetic memory, the autumn restlessness and eventual sleep of winter.”
Something Wild is a partnership of NH Audubon, the Forest Society, and NHPR.
