We live in an area of Charleston, SC with a lot of live oak trees. They’re magnificent and grand and have been around for almost a century. Many have Spanish moss hanging from their limbs. They have resurrection ferns growing over the large branches (look at image and it looks like crunchy dead brown ferns on the larger dark limbs) – once it rains, they turn magically green and looks like the prettiest ferns you’ve ever seen!

When people move to this area they are often surprised that we have so many leaves in the spring. It’s not uncommon to see 10+ leaf bags (the tall paper lawn bags). As soon as you get everything cleaned up and looking good the yard is covered. Once again. This goes on and on and on. You would think there wouldn’t be a single leaf left on the trees, but there are. Only some drop. Once you’re exhausted from bagging leaves the squiggles start. This is a very technical term. And finally, you see the bright green leaves against the nice blue sky? I think this is about it, until fall. Then more leaves (quite a few but not quite this many) and … 🎤 wait for it… acorns! #perfect! If you have a pool, this combination of leaves, squiggles and acorns in a year is enough to do you in. I’m sure they have something out by now that can take care of it all. Otherwise it’s a nightmare. On windy days all we do is skim the pool and empty the skimmer. Over and over and over. I wonder what the new technology is?

With all that said, these trees are worth every second of cleanup. They are stunning!

✍️ Until next time…

📸 Image: Barbara Stroud (me!)