UKC

Not sure if anyone else has noticed this, but in coastal parts of the Highlands, a large proportion of trees have turned brown and look dead.  A trip to the West coast a few weeks ago - Arisaig and Morar - showed most of the trees to be brown, even though the colours usually don't start to change until early to mid October.  There are apple trees in people's gardens with apples on, but completely brown and crispy leaves - a very odd sight.  We reckon it's because of the very hot and dry spell in May that may have shocked trees into conserving energy, and they couldn't recover.  There has then been an unusually dry Summer up here.

I've also noticed the deer grass has been brown on the hills for a few weeks now, and that doesn't normally start to happen until mid to end of September.  The bracken is also turning quite brown.  

I'm not sure I've ever seen this and it's very interesting.  I should take some photos of the apple trees!

In reply to Jamie Hageman:

That was the result of the storm.

In reply to Jamie Hageman:

Yeah noticed the same around Mallaig and Knoydart - asked some locals wondering if it was drought or what, but as Cog says - it was the big storm - apparently it whipped a hellish amount of salt spray which can cause browning akin to drought conditions (because they struggle to draw up water?).

Apparently most should recover fine. 

In reply to Cog:

Although, that said, our Japanese Maple dropped half its leaves very prematurely about 3-4 weeks ago, and prior to that another tree/shrub (not sure what it's called, but it's popular round here) completely shed all its leaves in the previous dry spell. We're in Dumbarton, so not exposed to salt spray but we're on the edge of the rainforest belt. I think it just came as a huge shock to the trees that we had such an extended period of heat and no rain.

In reply to Jamie Hageman:

I noticed it very prominently on Ardnamurchan the other weekend. The hill ground from sea level to summit was brown as if it was the end of autumn or the start of spring. There wasn’t much ‘gold’ to the colour like you get in prime autumn, it was very drab, with all the colour gone. The bracken was particularly brown.  
 

The fact it extends so high sort of rules out the salt hypothesis (which I heard being promoted elsewhere), as does the only green bracken I saw being in stream lines with still flowing water right by sea level, facing into the storm. Most but not all of the birch had turned as well.  
 

North of Assynt was similar last weekend, very little green, and a tapestry of brown.

In reply to jonny taylor:

In the north east of England: A couple of our plums have the leaves on some branches turning yellow and falling off; you can see the fierce competition for water as the grass up to their drip lines is much thinner and completely yellowed compared to the yellow-ish grass beyond the driplines.

Lots of roadside trees are having an early/false autumn.  Several thousand trees the council planted and then abandoned on a new development near us have all died…

Once the dry spring set in, I went on a massive mulching spree but it wasn’t enough, and the big rainwater tank was empty by May.  I’m looking at used food industry IBCs as a much cheaper (than new tanks) but rather ugly way of increasing the winter rainwater storage.

The worst impacted trees are the mature Sitka which have shed about 30% of their needles and now look really scrappy.  The needles have completely burried the grass under them so perhaps it helps them outcompete the grass for water.

Unusually, several local streams are now 100% sustained by springs which has really improved the water quality, and they’re heaving with Planarians.  Which are exceptionally cool creatures that have taken a very different evolutionary path to other animals.  Extensive regenerative capabilities, effectively immortal, can reproduce by tearing themselves in two, and despite all this they never get cancers.

In reply to wintertree:

I’ve noticed the following at home in West Yorkshire:

• lots of acorns
• lots of conkers
• lots of red berries
• blackberry season is nearly done
• Sycamores are heavy with seeds

Same down here in Cornwall.

The flora is stressed due to the dry year we’ve had.  Apparently the fauna, eg birds will then suffer as they normally eat insects this time of year, and in autumn there will be nothing when they normally eat the berries.

There was an article on the BBC website that’s worth a read.

In reply to ScraggyGoat:

I had wondered about the salt spray concept, but then also asked a mate that works in forestry and he confirmed it. According to mates in Skye, it's been far from a dry summer so I'm still not sure either way! 

In reply to Jamie Hageman:

Quite a few leaves down already on certain trees here in Sheffield, but I think they were always early. Gets me far too excited lying in bed at night, waiting to hear a badger rustling. 

In reply to Queen of the Traverse:

Is that a euphemism?

In reply to Queen of the Traverse:

I was thinking the same yesterday evening when I went for a what i like to call 'run' around the Moss Valley woods just South of Sheff and was ankle deep in fallen leaves at one point.  Seems ridiculously early for that (but as you say, it always does).  There's not much water in the Moss and most of the little tributary streams have dried up entirely.

The wheat fields have been harvested weeks ago and are all stubble and dust now - also ridiculously early and a very poor harvest by all accounts.  Ironically last year was a very poor harvest too on account of the exceptionally wet Spring. (When the next election rolls around, what are the odds half those farmers will have billboards up campaigning for the party pushing climate change denial.)

In reply to Jamie Hageman:

I would say the normal autumn, rather than the salt burn, is usually starting about now in Scotland anyway. We are a couple of weeks into the school autumn term, I think it is normal. I think it's the dramatic salt burn which makes it seem earlier

Early dropping of leaves is a well known response to drought stress in many deciduous trees, especially beech but also oak & others. Not visible but there is also a loss of fine roots. The impact of the 1976 drought on beech lasted several years & was well studied in a few sites, see papers by George Peterken.

A quick search on eg Google Scholar will turn up many papers on the subject. There are also less academic articles, eg https://www.lemonde.fr/en/environment/article/2025/08/20/why-heat-and-droug... 

In reply to Doug:

Yes, but I don't think that's what's happening in the West of Scotland. Some places in the west have had a little less rain than usual, but not inordinately so. 

Other places in the UK, and East of Scotland, it does sound like it has had an impact. The OP was talking about NW Scotland, and I just don't think it's unusually early here. 

In reply to girlymonkey:

Yes here in north east Scotland I’ve noticed an awful lot of autumnal leaves from the Beeches in particular. A walk around Pitmedden gardens paths yesterday was very leafy. Surprisingly early I thought. Blackberries in full bloom but the rasps are not ready yet. 

In reply to mike reed:

Rasps not ready seems odd!! Ours have been and gone ages ago! Do they maybe need more water to ripen or something? That is a strange one!

In reply to mike reed: That’s strange, we ate all ours at the beginning of the month month, in Fyvie.

In reply to Jamie Hageman:

Same here in East Lothian.  A mix of drought stress and storm damage - mechanical damage to the leaves after getting a good battering at the beginning of the month.  

Heather flowered earlier this year too.

In reply to Fat Bumbly 2.0:

And in Crieff. On one of my local walks yesterday, I was surprised at the numbers of fallen leaves. 

In reply to Jamie Hageman:

Second spring here in the South Aberdeenshire, the elder trees have put out fresh flowers, I've never seen that before.

In reply to Jamie Hageman:

I had look at the roadside trees near Lochailort today, exposed trees are brown and sheltered trees are still green.

There was a storm in May 2020 during lockdown when a lot of trees lost leaves, I wrote about it.

https://www.colinmoody.com/Site/Blog/Entries/2020/12/19_Spring.html

In reply to Jamie Hageman:

We commented on this in the Fannaichs weekend before last, it was very noticeable but didn't feel autumnal, what with all day 30 degree sunshine.

In reply to Basemetal:

I agree. They seem to be really small and bullet hard, yet the black berries are soft, sweet and juicy. I sort of assumed they needed more rain but I’m truly no gardener! It is weird.