Is it normal for Tulip trees to form buds already in late autumn?
There are leaf buds and flower buds. Tell us what bud you are seeing…ifyou know. If you don’t, just watch it through the winter and into spring and you will learn a lot. A bud is simply a leaf or a flower in the process of forming. Leaves and flowers do not appear fully formed and emerged overnight. They take time. Until they unfurl or bloom they are called buds. The almost always begin forming on trees a good six months or so before they unfurl or bloom. So this means that there will be buds in the winter for ALL trees — leaf buds. Depending on the bloom period, there will also be flower buds on many many many trees in the winter. Any spring flowering tree will have flower buds through the winter — dogwood, lilac, tulip, redbud, all the fruit trees, maples, halesia, viburnums, ………… In times of unusually warm weather, the buds may ‘swell’ (get ready to bloom or unfurl) prematurely. Perhaps this is what you are seeing, but it is hard to tell with out a more in depth descript
