Yellow Ginkgos
Terri Webster Schrandt

Sunday Stills: Plant Life Performs Autumn’s Serenade

Autumn moments are captured in photos this week, as leaves finally change color and begin to fall to the ground, here in Northeastern Washington.

Autumn Colors on Spokane's Centennial Trail

Surrounded by ancient evergreen forests of Ponderosa Pines, our deciduous trees sparkle with orange, yellow, and red.

Autumn on Methow River
Red Maple Trees in Line
autumn crystal clear reflection
Suburban Autumn Sidewalk

If you stay still for a moment, you can hear the winds soughing through the trees, a gentle murmur of leaves whispering their gentle lullaby.

Autumn Splendor
Autumn splendor

Even the weeds (herbs) have something to sing about. These mullein plants can grow over six feet tall. Mullein leaves are used medicinally in tea to help with respiratory issues.

weeds

The Oldest Living Species of Trees on Earth

When I lived in Sacramento and taught courses at Sacramento State University, I was transfixed every autumn when the ginkgo trees began to turn yellow.

Ginkgo Tree Grove Sacramento State University
Ginkgo Grove, Sacramento State University

The Ginkgo biloba is one of the oldest living tree species in the world. It’s the sole survivor of an ancient group of trees that date back to before dinosaurs roamed the Earth – creatures that lived between 245 and 66 million years ago. Source

Last year, we acquired our own ginkgo tree that lives happily in our backyard, and is currently fenced against neighborhood deer. This tree should be happy here, planted on the land around Nine Mile Falls, which was shaped by ancient lava flows from the Columbia River.

ginkgo tree

“The Ginkgo tree is so ancient, the species is known as a ‘living fossil’.” ~ Yale Botanist Peter Crane

ginkgo leaves
Ginkgo Leaves

“October, baptize me with leaves! Swaddle me in corduroy and nurse me with split pea soup. October, tuck tiny candy bars in my pockets and carve my smile into a thousand pumpkins. O autumn! O teakettle! O grace!” – Rainbow Rowell

pumpkins
rust brushstroke

Not autumn where you live? Don’t despair! If you are participating in the photo challenge, show us your SPRING plant life! Just for fun, here is one of mine:

Dogwood Trees bloom in May
Spring’s Dogwood Trees

Sharing this week for Dawn’s Festival of Leaves-Week 4, Johnbo’s Cellpic Sunday, and Lens-Artists – Ancient.

graphic

Sunday Stills Photo Challenge Reminders

The Sunday Stills weekly-themed photo challenge is easy to join. You have all week to share and link your post. Please use your own original images, whether new or from your archives.

  • Remember to title your blog post a little differently from mine.
  • Please create a new post for the theme or link to a recent one.
  • Entries for this theme can be posted all week.
  • Tag your post “Sunday Stills.”
  • Don’t forget to create a pingback to this post so that other participants can read your post.
  • I also recommend adding your post’s URL to the comments.

If you are participating in the photo challenge, I look forward to seeing how you interpret this week’s theme! Creativity is encouraged, so please share your own photographs (old or new), poems, original short stories, and music inspired by the theme. Join me next week as we explore “SCARY,” just in time for Halloween. 🎃

Ginkgos

“I cozy up to autumn’s trees. Fall asleep to the lullaby of windblown leaves.” ~ Angie Weiland-Crosby

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112 comments

  7. Life is really colorful in Washington right now. Wow! We are having beautiful days in the 80s and sometimes 70s, but we’re not at color yet. We’ve had some wonderful fall festivals around the county, though. I miss the colorful lakes around Prescott. We haven’t driven up to the Sequoia’s to see the lake up there.

    Information about the beautiful Ginko tree is news to me. They are stunning in the fall. We should definitely plant one. So far I don’t have a single new fall picture for you. Yikes!

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  8. Terri,

    Thanks for the glorious offering of fall color. The ginko trees and the Maples are stunning. You will be proud of your very own ginko in the coming years. Our leaves are at or near peak, and we’re going camping in the mountains this weekend with our church. I’m getting excited–the weather should be perfect.

    My contribution is an image of fall color at Newfound Gap in the Great Smoky Mountains. It’s not peak color, but getting there. Here’s wishing you a splendid fall. Joe

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    • Hard to “compete” with the Great Smokey Mtns during autumn, Joe. I’m just happy with our small shows in the areas here. Soon the Western Larch will turn yellow 💛! Enjoy your camping trip among the autumn splendor. Lovely shot, wow!

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  12. Loved your post Terri! As you mentioned, we don’t really get normal fall colors here, but our pink sweetgrass makes me feel better about it!! I’ll be sharing some later this month. Until them I”ll just be envious of your amazing colors. I truly loved the ginkgo grove with the circular pattern on the ground. That’s a wonderful capture!

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    • Thank you, Tina! Your pink sweet grass is your signature of fall. That seasonal change and expectation is reassuring. Our little ginkgo won’t be making enough leaves for patterns for a while, but I sure loved seeing what the University volunteers did every season. 🍁

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  13. Our autumn looks exactly like yours right now. Gorgeous. The night have only begun to get colder now so the leaves will begin their descent any day now. And thanks for the little bio of the Ginko tree. 🧡

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  15. I’m always thrilled when the first signs of Autumn appear, and this year they appeared early here in Wales, Terri. And we have been so lucky in that we had 10 days of calm weather, although oit was grey, so the leaves have stayed on the trees.

    This is my favourite capture of Autumn so far this year. It’s an acer tree in our garden. I hope the picture comes through.

    The autumn colours in your part of the world look and sound amazing. I hope lady Autumn puts on a grand display for you.

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  16. Thank you, Hugh! Fall seemed to have landed at different times in the northern hemisphere this year. This week is our peak and the coming weekend storm should end it.
    The image didn’t come through, at least via Jetpack on my phone. I’d love to see your tree!

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  18. Terri, beautiful autumn photos, each one reflects nature’s gems. I love the ginkgoes, and learning more about them. Where I live, it seems we had 2 days of autumn, and now it feels like winter. Mother nature must be in a bad mood.

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  21. I’m so happy to see ginkgo trees, they are remarkable trees and I always loved the idea of living fossils. Your photos are glorious, Terri, it’s such a lovely season, but nearly all done around here.

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  24. I’m thinking, how beautiful the birth month of my Mama, youngest sister, and third eldest sister in your place. It looks so special. I love Ginkgo trees. It looks perfect. The yellow is pleasing to my eyes.

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  26. Terri, your leaves in all their jewel-toned colors are so beautiful. Our leaves were beginning to turn just a little, but today’s nonstop rain and 30+ mph winds might have wrestled those pretty leaves from the trees – hopefully not. We have off-and-on rain all week as Fall settles in bigtime … yesterday we almost broke the record of 84 when we got to 82 and today is 30 degrees cooler. My post will be about wildflowers that are flourishing in a surprising place and their pollinators, with a heron and its reflection thrown in for good measure. 🙂

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    • Thank you, Debbie! Some of mine were from years past! Someone at our gym mentioned the mullein plants we have here. I guess you can dry the leaves and make a tea to help with respiratory ailments. We just mow ours down! 😆 Wishing you proper autumn colors soon!

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    • Thank you, Graham! In my yard, we have three maples, whose leaves are each completely different in color from each other. When I read the L-A challenge I almost didn’t link anything but remembered reading the ginkgo trees were around when dinosaurs walked the earth, according to fossils. I’m so happy we have one and they successfully grow here.

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  42. What a beautifully evocative reflection on autumn! 🍂 Your writing captures the season’s colors, textures, and sounds in such a vivid and immersive way—reading it feels like walking through the rustling leaves along Spokane’s Centennial Trail or beside the Methow River. I love how you balance the visual splendor with sensory details, like the gentle whisper of the wind through the trees.

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  47. To think we can hear the autumn fall is an understatement through your photos, Terri. There is boldness, rhythm, and pop that is music to my ears…and eyes. The history of the ginkgo is interesting. I love that someone, a landscaper (?) took time to bring some art under the tree. I will only last a few hours, but it’s appreciated just the same.

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    • Thank you, Donna! Glad you “got” the music metaphors. A last minute inspiration. The ginkgo grove at the university was amazing to see every year. I believe volunteers did the landscape circles. They did blow away but often the leaves stuck together from the rain. Always worth seeing. One thing I miss about Sacramento. Happy Sunday!

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  50. Just beautiful! I began noticing the maple trees are finally turning, just yesterday. Today it’s pouring rain so we shall see what’s left when the rain stops. Loved that row of red trees against the green, and of course I love the ginkos. I have one in my back yard that I protect fiercely when other trees are falling down around it! I love that it drops all it’s leaves at once in the fall. Right now the tree has held onto green, but yesterday I saw that it had turned yellow. I bet the leaves are down when the rain stops.

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  51. Beautiful fall photos, Terri. You are super talented at spotting which compositions work in the context of the landscape. I love the Ginkgo Biloba at Sacramento State U. Yours is a fine example, well protected and tended to. Most excellent closeup of the leaves!

    Thank you for the beautiful quote by Rainbow Rowell.

    P.S. And yes, I can hear the sounds of autumn’s lullaby rehearsed by the breezes in the trees. I delight.

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