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I have lived in Central Florida almost all of my life, and I didn't notice that during winter that most tress down here look green all year, and even the grass is green all year! I love the grass down here.
I've been to Orlando in the winter, felt a fall-vibe when I was there. Parts of Orlando had brownish grass, other parts were green. The trees had brown withering leaves. It felt like fall, with palm trees. And the wind-chill was pretty bad by Florida standards. Central Florida was experiencing those annual winter cold-fronts, in which the Palm Trees still looked healthy, but the trees were changing colors, and leaves falling, and it was down right chilly. They say Florida doesen't have 4 seasons, but parts of Florida have 2-3ish. Central Florida gets Autumn-ish around December/January.
If I can remember correctly, if you're driving north on the Florida Turnpike in the dead of winter, the trees begin turning from green to a brownish color about halfway through St. Lucie County. After Indian River County, most of the trees--save the pines and palms--are mostly reddish/brownish in color and some are even pretty thinned out.
All I know is that Miami has never looked like Winter in the 12 years that I have spent here. The only things that seems to turn brownish are the iguanas. In the Winter they are not as bright green as they are in the Summer.
In the mid-Atlantic region, the grass stays green all year round, even beneath a foot of snow. It can turn a little brownish, but the green does not go away except when it has been unusually hot with low precipitation for several weeks. And that happens during the summer months - especially around August - once in a while.
Also, lots of shrubs and evergreens remain during the winter. So, I'd say if anything looks "dead" then it's only partially so.
The Cherry Blossoms in DC are expected to peak around April 8-12 this year.
The trees here do go bare in the Charleston area. It has taken until the last couple of weeks for the trees to stop being bare.
In Jan. and Feb, there's still some leaves on the trees, but very light. This year especially since we had two winter storms in about a 3 week period.
Why do people there plant so many decidiuous trees then? I assume because of spring blossoms and fall color. Both overrated. I'd rather have deep green grass and green trees and shrubs in winter than color for a couple weeks in spring and fall. Charleston doesn't have to look dead in winter if people plant foliage that will stay green.
Not true. As others have pointed out many places in the US have green landscapes in winter. You also forgot about CA and Arizona.
Are you aware there are over 3,000 citrus trees in Charleston County alone in South Carolina. These were counted by USDA personnel due to the presence of citrus greening.
Yes, I'm from Orange County, CA, where it's very green in winter. You can barely tell the difference in the landscape from summer.
The thing with trees is, are they deciduous, or are they broadleaf evergreens? Broadleaf evergreens are tropical/sub tropical, such as Live Oaks, Southern Magnolias, Ficus, Eucalyptus, and thousands more. In coastal Orange County, it doesn't freeze (I don't think I ever saw it get below about 38 degrees at my house, and that was extremely rare) so you can grow all types of tropical trees and palms, even though it can get rather cool (like rainy and in the 50s). The grass stays green in OC all winter and flowers bloom, but things grow a bit slower due to less sunlight in winter (shorter days). But you will see a few bare trees in OC in mid winter. If you plant a deciduous tree there, it will lose its leaves, usually in December. Some deciduous trees, such as the Ash, will act "semi-evergreen" in OC, which means they get a little Fall color in December and in January, shed old leaves and sprout new ones all at the same time. So Ash trees are kind of ugly in January, but then stay green from about February until the following December. I had a neighbor with a Maple tree in OC and it didn't seem to like it there, not really knowing what to do in winter. Its leaves would shrivel in November/December and then it would stay bare until about May. Some deciduous trees really need to live somewhere that has freezes so they know when to lose and grow their leaves.
As you drive south in the eastern U.S. in winter, you begin to encounter more and more broadleaf evergreens and then palms. So the further south you drive in January, the more green you'll see until you get to central/southern Florida.
I lived in San Antonio, TX for a couple years and as far south as it is (about the same lattitude as Orlando), you'd think it would be very green in winter. But with nothing to block arctic cold from moving down (no mountains or bodies of water to the north), San Antonio can get hard freezes that prevent the growth of most varieties of broadleaf evergreens and palms. You'll see some palms there, along with Magnolias, Live Oaks and a few types of broadleaf evergreens, but mostly you'll see deciduous trees that lose their leaves in November and green back up in March.
I just have to revive this thread to put forth facts I found during my winter tours of the US South:
The ENTIRE coastal portion of the US South, from south Virginia down to Florida, and the west to the Texas coast, is green-year round; in the natural, pristine climax conditions, the landscape is that of thick maritime subtropical evergreen forests, swamps, grasslands, and a mix of all, not too dissimilar to those seen in South Japan. There are some deciduous trees in the Coastal South that do lose their trees, but such trees do that no matter where they grow; they even do that in Miami. Also, unlike in the Northeast, such deciduous trees in the coastal South do not dominate the forest landscape by any stretch of imagination. Instead, these jungles are made up of more tender, subtropical evergreens like Live Oaks, magnolias, bay trees, laurels, vines, etc, in their pristine, mesophyllic, climax state.
Now, some parts of the forests may feature less broadleaf evergreens, instead having a larger presence of evergreens in the form of subtropical pines, such as slash pines, and longleaf pines, as well as more deciduous trees. These areas are the result of either the depletion of the mesophyllic conditions needed for broadleaf evergreen forests, due to periods of drought and fire centuries ago, along with disturbance caused by human activity, or are the result of the habitats featuring the droughty soils, which then give way to the pines and the deciduous trees. But, give the South some time, and you'll see the soil quality in the disturbed areas change for the better, to the point that the broadleaf evergreen forests will then be ubiquitous, like they are in South Japan.
Here are examples of the pristine, broadleaf evergreen subtropical forests of the Coastal South:
In addition to such natural areas of greenery, the cities of the coastal South grow all kinds of subtropical/tropical plants, from many different evergreens to many different palms to all kinds of crops, from sugar cane to citrus, and even some tropical crops like bananas, and mangoes.
Here in Northern California, our greenest grass happens in winter and spring. More of our trees lose leaves than SoCal, but things are at least somewhat green and lively year round. This is more true in the natural rural areas; urban areas have trees brought in from other places that drop their leaves more.
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