Berkeley’s Back
The UC Berkeley Botanical Garden often peaks in late November. This year is no exception.
Sandy Steinman, who edits the blog Natural History Wanderings, visited yesterday and found the garden at or slightly past peak. He wrote, “It was very windy this morning … so I am guessing there is some leaf loss.”
The Asian Section of the garden was then carpeted with auburn Japanese maple leaves and it would now likely be able to double as the runway for an awards show were it at UCLA instead of Berkeley.
Even though color is dropping, there’s enough still being carried on its trees to make the UC Berkeley Botanical Garden a worthy place to visit on Orange Friday (the day following Thanksgiving Day). So, if you’ll be in the SF Bay Area this week, now’s the time to walk this compact yet beautiful garden.
Docent-led tours occur from 11 a.m. to noon, daily (Closed on First and Third Tuesday of each month).
The Botanical Garden knows November is its month to peak, as that’s the topic of this month’s blog by Garden Director Lew Feldman. CLICK HERE to read it.
- UC Berkeley Botanical Garden (171′) – PEAK to Past Peak, GO NOW, you almost missed it.
Bay Area Beauty
Mountain View is peaking. Along its streets, vibrant displays of buttery Gingko biloba, ruby maple, chartreuse sycamore and burnt-orange Liquidambar have lit the town. MV began as an agricultural community, but today is best known as the headquarters for Google, which Vishal Mishra used to deliver these images of his hometown.
Mountain View is where William Shockley established the Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory, which was the genesis for Silicon Valley. Included among its tech giants are the NASA Ames Research Center, Intuit, LinkedIn, Samsung, Microsoft, 23andMe, Alphabet Inc., Unicode Consortium, Symantec and Synopsys.
The town has a mild climate with an average high in the 60s and 70s and only 64 rainy days each year. With such a clement environment, just about anything can grow there.
Its native deciduous foliage includes blue and valley oak, bigleaf maple, box elder, white alder, blue and black elderberry, red osier and brown dogwood, California buckeye and various willow, though landscaped trees provide the dominant fall color.
- Mountain View (105′) – PEAK (75-10%) GO NOW!
Red Hot
- Tri-valley Area, East SF Bay (495′) – Patchy to PEAK (10 – 100%), GO NOW!
USC Surrounds Stanford
Cardinal and gold surround Stanford presently with USC’s school colors dominating Palo Alto, Los Altos and Menlo Park.
Vishal Mishra reports Peak conditions along the southern San Francisco Peninsula.
- Menlo Park (72′) – PEAK (75-100%) GO NOW!
- Palo Alto (30′) – PEAK (75-100%) GO NOW!
- Los Altos (157′) – PEAK (75-100%) GO NOW!
Vasona Lake County Park
Crisp, cool days, clear skies and fall color combine to make autumn delightful time to visit a local park.
Frank Dariano has followed California Fall Color for years. So, when he visited Vasona Lake County Park in Los Gatos (South SF Bay Area) and found the foliage bright with color, he wanted to share the beauty.
The most colorful of the trees now being seen at Vasona Lake Park are exotic, fluorescent Chinese pistache (Pistacia chinensis). They are peaking across California, presently. Also carrying color are native Western sycamore (Plantanus racemosa), black oak (Quercus kellogii), valley oak (Quercus Iobata), white alder (Alnus rhombifolia), blue elderberry (Sambucus mexicana), and black cottonwood (Populus trichocarpa).
- Vasona Lake County Park, Los Gatos (344′) – Near Peak (50-75%) Go Now.
Saratoga Summits
Autumn color has summited in Saratoga where there’s gold in the hills and deep red in town.
This residential community set against the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains has a small-town feel, despite being in the midst of edgy Silicon Valley.
Vishal Mishra says the color there is peaking and, with today’s storm, will likely pass peak within the week.
- Saratoga (423′) – PEAK (75-10%) GO NOW!
Bay Area Looking Up
Exotic trees growing along city streets and in parks in the San Francisco Bay Area have moved toward peak with lots of dazzling color to be seen in urban forests.
Color spotter Lucas Yan comments, “it’s still slightly early for Sunnyvale (though) many of the trees have already started to turn color.”
He found gingkos with “bursts of yellow, tulip trees “a vibrant orange,” and many sweetgums that line the streets have turned red. He’s looking forward to the hot hues of Chinese pistache, which are still muted. Though clearly, literally and figuratively fall color is looking up in the Bay Area.
- Sunnyvale (125′) – Near Peak (50-75%) Go Now.
Sunrise in the East Bay Hills
Anywhere else, people would call them mountains, but in California we call them hills.
When Salil Bhatt’s report of a sunrise walk in the East Bay Hills arrived, I had to smile. Not just because I love seeing reports of fall color that’s descended to sea level (Peak is now below 4,000′), but because Salil wrote, “I had gone for a sunrise hike last Saturday (Oct 29) on a local hilltop to catch the morning sun lighting up the hills …”
California has 352 mountain ranges and over 8,000 peaks. We call most of them hills. We reserve “mountains” for mounds greater than 2,000′. Those are the ones that really count. Mount Diablo, Mount Tamalpais, Mount Laguna, Mount Palomar, Mount Baldy. The Trinity Alps. The Cascades. The Sierra Nevada. The rest, well, they’re just hills.
Take the Berkeley Hills, for example. They top out at 1,906′. A 1,906′ peak would be the Everest of the midwest, were one there. In Berkeley, it’s just a hill.
Nonetheless, from California’s hills, one can see magnificence as Salil did. He wrote, “Seemingly, the grass has now gone from golden hues of summer to brown. And so, the colors aren’t as stark or spectacular. But what I did find on my way back, was a few Maple trees in the neighborhood had fully turned red.”
He returned two days later to get more pictures of urban forest color that is now appearing. “Most trees are still green, but a few cottonwood and sycamore have a tinge of yellow on them.”
What is showing color are the exotics … landscaped maple and Chinese pistache. They’re at peak carrying garnet foliage and fluorescent hot pink, ruby, carnelian, saffron, cantaloupe, and emerald.
November is the Bay Area’s month. The Livermore Valley, Danville, Walnut Creek, Burlingame, Atherton, San Leandro, San Rafael, Berkeley, Saratoga, Los Altos and Palo Alto are among the necklace of bay cities that will light up in coming weeks, and you won’t need to climb a mountain to see them. Just climb a hill.
- San Ramon and Diablo Valleys (486′) – Patchy (10-50%)
Beginning and End
California’s autumn begins and ends with two very similar trees … Quaking aspen and Frémont cottonwood.
While color spotting along Alamo Creek between San Ramon and Dublin, Salil Bhatt was at first mistaken when he identified Frémont cottonwood as being Quaking aspen, but after checking references realized his error.
They each have heart-shaped leaves and are different types of poplars, but they grow in different ranges.
Quaking aspen, Populus tremuloides, grow between 3,000 and 10,000′ in elevation. Whereas, Frémont cottonwood, Populus fremontii, are seen only up to 6,500′.
So, while aspen begin the peak, cottonwood end it.
- Sunol Regional Wilderness (196′) – Peak to Past Peak, GO NOW, You Almost Missed It.