June 1: Summertime Fall

Ahhh, the beauty of falling leaves. Uh, fronds. Yes, folks, it's that time again. Fall in South Florida. And no, I didn't flip my calendar ahead three months by accident on June 1. It's fall down here all right, but a different kind of fall, a more literal kind of fall. As in, "Don't sit under that royal palm" kind of fall. Ok, let me explain what the heck I'm talking about. In the subtropics, of course, we're on a fairly different seasonal schedule than the rest of North America. As I've mentioned before in these blogs, there also are many subtle changes that happen in the South Florida environment throughout each twelve month cycle.

We're seeing one of those now. And that's the reason I'm referring to this time, tongue firmly in cheek, as our "fall." It's the season when lots of very large palm trees begin to drop their very large fronds to the ground. Actually, maybe it's not so subtle now that I think about it. But it does give a whole new meaning to raking leaves.

On Saturday, I was sitting on my patio reading the newspaper when suddenly: "Craaack .... whoosh ... plunk!" A six-foot brown palm frond broke loose from a tall royal palm and slammed to the ground. This happened on the other side of my lake, maybe 150 yards away, but it got my attention. Fronds have been falling from the coconut palm directly in front of my condo too. And on a drive this morning, I noticed that nearly every royal palm at an intersection by the airport had a dried frond or two ready to drop. There must be 20 or more of these trees planted at that spot. For some reason, none of the fronds ever seem to land on anyone or anything other than the ground - probably because wise folks know better than to put themselves or their stuff under the palms just now. No, we're not talking about danger in any way. We're just talking about one of those intriguing seasonal changes that I've never witnessed anywhere but South Florida. The truth is that palm fronds drop off trees at other times of the year as well but this is one of those periods when it seems more common. "Fall," Fort Lauderdale style. You won't need a jacket for our version, but you will want a very big rake.