With just a couple of weeks of summer left, the season for leaf peeping is fast approaching.
In about three to four weeks, leaves from trees like oaks, maples and hickories will start turning hues of red, brown, yellow and orange. This happens as trees prepare for winter.
“As the nights get longer and the days get shorter, combined with the cooler temperatures, the trees start to shut down for the growing season,” said Catherine Sparks, assistant director of the Bureau of Natural Resources at the state Department of Environmental Management.
“And certainly this year in the early spring we had some areas of very, very, very heavy defoliation by several different types of caterpillars.”
The crown on those trees is a little bit thinner because of the caterpillar infestations. But Sparks said that shouldn’t affect the colors we typically see in the fall.
“Very wet or very dry areas sometimes start to turn a little earlier,” said Sparks. “But generally it’s about mid-October when Rhode Islanders will start to see a lot of that fall color.”