Love those tamaracks

We're so lucky here in Edmonton to have a river valley with parks full of trees... and I have my favourites. These days, it's the tamarack, a golden-needled beauty that's keeping the fall colour going a few weeks longer.

Tamaracks are deciduous conifers, meaning that they reproduce through seed cones and drop their needles every autumn. I didn't know that one tree could fit both categories! But tamaracks start out with fresh green which becomes a blue green, then gold, and finally you find golden needles all over the ground. The really lovely thing is that the needles are soft, not prickly like many of our pines and spruces, so Shadow-pup can run around under the trees and not end up limping. He also enjoys the chickadees that feed on the seed cones during the winter.

We have several gorgeous tamaracks in one of our favourite river valley parks, and I've been watching their colour come and go over the last weeks. It won't be with us much longer, so I'm enjoying while I can... until the pale green returns next spring. It's nice to see a bit of gold on an overcast day, don't you think?