Gallery: Autumn Fruit Tree Foliage

Before now, if you’d asked me to name one aesthetic quality that tree fruits don’t excel at, I’d have said that autumn colour probably wasn’t one of their strongest suits. In most years, most fruit trees’ leaves seem to go from green to muddy brown and then drop without putting on much of a display. But for some reason – and I’m assuming that it’s something to do with the weather patterns we’ve had this year – 2025 is a bit different. I’ve been noticing a lot more reds, yellows, oranges and bronzes in the fruit tree foliage, especially on the various trees we have at work.

Leaves change colour in autumn due to the breakdown in leaf tissues of chlorophyll, the pigment that drives photosynthesis and reflects green light, giving leaves their emerald hues. Normally chlorophyl is present in such quantity that it masks the other pigments in the leaves – red-reflecting anthocyanins and the yellow-orange carotenoids – but as the chlorophyll degrades the underlying tones shine through.¹That’s an incredibly over-simplified version of events, of course. See this article on leaf colour at encyclopedie-environnement.org for a more detailed overview. Combine these changes in leaf colour with the the changes in the angle and wavelength of sunlight at this time of year and that’s why autumn’s mellow, warming tones can also be quite so striking and dramatic.

Here are a few highlights that I’ve spotted from the 2025 autumn display. Most of these photos were taken over the past month or so.

Peach ‘Rochester’

Some lovely, deep orange-reds this year, contrasting with the greens of the leaves that are yet to turn:

Nectarine ‘Lord Napier’

I do like the patterning on these long, lanceolate²Meaning: lance-head shaped. All leaf-shapes have a name, see the glossary of leaf morphology on Wikipedia for more.. leaves:

Apricot ‘Moorpark’

Quite the kaliedoscope:

Apple ‘Lucombe’s Pine’

This tree is a spray of gold, with yellow apples still on its branches as well:

Apple ‘Pitmaston Pine Apple’

I don’t think I’ve seen apple leaves looking quite so golden before:

Pear ‘Buerre Hardy’

I think I’ve remembered the variety, but it might be ‘Louise Bonne of Jersey’. In any case, those anthocyanins are really working their socks off:

Blueberries, Various

Our back garden potted blueberry plantation is a reliable source of autumn colour, running the full range from yellows to deepest reds:

Fig ‘Brown Turkey’

Our back garden fig tree explodes into gold every year as well:

Vines, Assorted

In the vinery glasshouse at work, the vine leaves were doing their thing recently, before the vines were winter-pruned:

Medlar ‘Nottingham’

And down on the allotment the medlar tree on the orchard plot opposite ours has been coloured up nicely as well:

How about you? Have you noticed any particularly lovely autumn colours on your fruit trees this year? Please do let me know if so, via the comments.

Footnotes

• 1
  That’s an incredibly over-simplified version of events, of course. See this article on leaf colour at encyclopedie-environnement.org for a more detailed overview. ↩︎
• 2
  Meaning: lance-head shaped. All leaf-shapes have a name, see the glossary of leaf morphology on Wikipedia for more. ↩︎