Here in California we do not have a witch hazel to study up close. We decided to do a more general tree study and take a trip to the U.C. Davis Arboretum since it is just an hour drive from our home. For those that are not familiar with arboretums, they are botanical gardens devoted to trees. This particular arboretum has a three and half mile loop you can walk adjacent to Putah Creek.
Just a note: In doing some researching even after I wrote the Autumn Nature Study Continues ebook, I discovered that the sweetgum tree is in the same family as the witch hazel (Hamamelidaceae). Although it isn’t a late fall bloomer like witch hazel, we do enjoy our sweetgum trees and their autumn color. I will be creating a page in my nature journal for this tree instead of the witch hazel.
Back to our arboretum visit…
In several sections there are walkways on both sides of the creek with picturesque bridges connecting the two sides. On the afternoon we visited, there were few people and it was calming to stroll along taking in the beautiful surroundings.
Each section of the arboretum has a theme, a collection of trees from various parts of the world like Australia or South America. My favorite area was the Redwood Grove where there were many coast redwoods and sequoia trees planted like a small forest. There were benches and picnic tables at which there were people sitting and enjoying a quiet afternoon. I wish I could share with you the delightful aroma of the warm redwoods in the sun.
Many of the trees had small signs that gave you their name, family, and native habitat. I always like to know what I am looking at so this added to my enjoyment of the walk. The valley oaks are plentiful in this area and there were some majestic specimens to enjoy with their large sometimes colorful leaves and acorns scattered all around the trunks.
This made a perfect habitat for lots and lots of squirrels. Watch out for squirrels darting across the trail or sitting in trees above and chattering at you as you walk.
Here’s an image looking up at the valley oak…we wondered how old these trees were.
We truly enjoyed this afternoon at the arboretum. Not only the trees, but the ducks and turtles in the water. From the bridges you could get a clear view of the many Western pond turtles that were swimming and basking on this particular day.
I always find it interesting to take a few close ups of the ground in different places. Here are two of my images from our walk.
Can you tell it is autumn? Look at all those acorns!
Finally, I collected a few leaves to sketch into my nature journal….love the colors all together!
We continue to have warm sunny weather and we are trying to take advantage of the opportunity to enjoy walks to note the autumn trees.
We did an autumn tree walk a few weeks ago, since all our leaves are pretty much gone now. We enjoyed doing lots of leaf rubbings of our autumn leaves!
Wow…your leaves are all gone already. We are just now getting our real autumn color. I find it so interesting how things are very different from place to place. Glad you got your autumn tree walk in before your leaves were off the trees.
I spent two years at UC Davis, and it’s such a disappointment to me now that I didn’t take advantage of the Arboretum–I only got interested in nature study when we had children and I started learning alongside them, and by then, we were back in the San Jose area. Such a shame. If we ever head back that way, I think we’ll need to make a stop.
We’re just getting our first bits of fall color too. It has been a warm fall (as usual), but the weather seems to have finally turned a bit over the last couple weeks, so I think we’ll be seeing bright foliage soon.
Davis isn’t so far from San Jose….you should totally try to do it some day with your kids. Such a great family friendly place to take a long walk. 🙂