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Plant Talk

Inside The New York Botanical Garden

Ginkgo

What’s Beautiful Now: Fallen Fall

Posted in What's Beautiful Now on November 22 2019, by Matt Newman

Fallen leaves are no less beautiful. As this season of transition continues, don’t forget to look down as well as up—you might catch the bright yellows (like these Ginkgo leaves), reds, and oranges of the recent forest splendor still carrying on toward winter.

Photo of Ginkgo leaves on the ground

A Living Fossil in New York

Posted in Around the Garden on December 3 2011, by Matt Newman

Ginkgo biloba 'Pendula'The peak of fall foliage is an explosion of color, but the window of opportunity to catch this sort of beauty is sometimes slim. For some trees it only takes a week or two before the brilliant reds, oranges, and yellows that come with cooler weather have passed; you venture out one day to find every last leaf crunching underfoot, and a latticework of barren branches netting the sky above.

As I walked through the Garden recently, noting the trees which were heavy with leaves just a week or two ago, I found myself hunting out the stragglers. I suppose it’s more accurate to call them survivors–the last of the foliated plants, big and small, still stubbornly holding onto their leaves when many growing around them have already closed up shop for the coming winter. Somehow, the few holding out until the last minute seem that much brighter for their small numbers.

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