Thank the drought because trees use vibrant colors as a way to ask for help, experts say.

“When a plant is under stress they tend to bloom more or be more vibrant to draw attention to itself so people will realize there is a tree and will help it,” Alan Simcik of Cen-Tex Nursery said.

Dirk Aaron, Bell County extension agent for agriculture, believes the drought combined with the temperature is the cause.

“We’ve had much lower night temperatures and we’ve had a drier season,” Aaron said.

He believes it is “a uniformity of trees going to dormancy and leaves changing colors.”

Simcik said the gradual change in weather has given the trees a chance to slowly turn colors.

He said the instant freeze that usually occurs causes the leaves to change immediately from green to brown without a turning period.

“The frost will signal to the tree to cut off that leaf,” he said.

Since the temperature has been slowly dropping, a sudden frost hasn’t warned the trees of the need to lose leaves, he said.