Leaves in our lives

Leaves in our lives

Don’t you just love early Spring when we see the first green leaves of the little snowdrops and crocus appearing. After New Years Day I am looking out for the first signs of growth on any plants displaying their emerging new green leaves which are so important to plant life and our human health.

I go back to my college days and hearing about chlorophyll and its role in capturing sunlight for photosynthesis and giving the plant its green colour. This was my first nature awareness lecture. It was about the role we, as teachers could play by planting trees to improve our environment visually. We also heard about the role trees could play in making the air we breathe much healthier by reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the air and giving us better quality oxygen. We were introduced to that word chlorophyl.

Fast forward some years and I was on an extended holiday in leafy Vermont and The Northern Territories in the USA. My host was a retired park ranger who was an enthusiastic supporter of the grow more trees movement and he was delighted to impart his knowledge about the benefit of trees in our environment to me. I was fascinated by the fall colours in the trees that grew there. They had green, yellow, red, purple, orange brown and several shades in between. They had far more vibrant colours than we had in Ireland. There I learned again about chlorophyll, but I also heard about carotenoids and when the daylight shortens the role of the chlorophyll fades, and the yellows and browns of the carotenoids come into their own. I was fascinated by the amount of work our little leaves were involved in. Each leaf is a mini chemical processing photosynthetic factory.

Meanwhile back in the Green Isle we get the snowdrops, crocuses and daffodils in early Spring. Their leaves get very busy with their photosynthesis role using the limited amount of sunlight we get to make carbon dioxide and water.

As Spring advances and the days lengthen these early growers are followed up by a richness of emerging greenness when trees, shrubs and flowers with all their growth being fuelled by the sugar from the photosynthesis burst out of their winter hibernation.

In summer plants are at their greenest with the help of extra sunlight. This is high chlorophyll season when the leaves help the plants grow, produce lovely blooms and in some cases produces fruit like the apple trees, plums, gooseberries, blackcurrants, strawberries to satisfy our delicate summer palates.

Ireland is noted in song and story for its forty shades of green with its green grass and vegetation.

We also enjoy the magnificent variety of tree leaves with such gems as the horse chestnut tree. I love its serrated leaves giving us spiky green capsules with smooth brown conkers inside.

The shapely oak leaf is wavy and serrated and produces oval shaped shells with acorns inside. Beech leaves are oval and produce spiky small beechnuts which some people eat. Sycamore leaves are large and very attractive. Their seed balls have a lot of small seeds which scatter when they ripen and hence you will notice a lot of young sycamore trees growing in forests in early summer every year. I always admire the lordly native ash with its long leaves on a central stem with up to seven sections on each side. Their seeds are called keys, and they are like little helicopters when they fly. The timber of the ash tree is used for making so many hurleys, giving us the well-known phrase “the clash of the ash “Sadly now the ash dieback disease is destroying our ash trees.

All trees enrich our lives and help make for clearer air for our lungs during forest and urban walks.

As the year advances and summer morphs into autumn there is a lessening in heat and length of daylight. This leads to a consequent reduction in chlorophyll production and a diminution of greenness in leaves. Then with less green about the dormant yellow and brown colours begin to show, and we get those lovely autumnal russets and browns.

 The annual shedding of leaves also begins now. This is a real bonus time for soil enrichment as the falling leaves decompose and add nutrients to the soil of forests, parks and domestic gardens alike.

On the domestic front there are some trees like the Camelia that I really admire and like. We have two of them growing in our garden, one a pink and the other a red. They bloom in early January every year. They have a most wonderful glossy green leaf and are great beacons of new growth for every new year brightening up our Spring outdoor space and throughout the year.

Another real gem is the Pieris Forest Flame which grows close to the Camelia in our garden. It gives us a continuous colour show throughout the year with ever changing leaf colour. It starts off in Spring with bright red leaves changing to pink, cream and green. This beautiful plant, native to China, Japan and Taiwan is one of my favourite multicoloured leafy plants of the garden.

 I think as well about other important leaves in our gardens. Where would we be without the cabbage leaves, or the various lettuce leaves for our salads. Our celery leaves are great for soups and salads or where would we be without the scallions. Yes, and then what about the parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme for flavouring. Leaves of all shapes, colours and flavours play an important role in our lives. They have done so since biblical times as we see in the Book Of Jonah.

Jonah 4.6 Then the Lord God provided a leafy plant and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the plant.

So, from this day on we must ‘turn over a new leaf ‘or maybe ‘take a leaf out of someone else’s book’.