Winter Green

Winter in the Northland is a beautiful and peaceful time of year. Most birds fly south to warmer climates, many mammals hibernate, and trees drop their leaves and go dormant for the season. However, there is one special type of tree that thrives in the cold and even keeps its green leaves, the amazing evergreen. The evergreen mixes its multi shades of cool green with the azure blue sky and the white snow, to complete the winter landscape.


Evergreens have special leaves designed to survive winter. We call them needles, but they are like simple leaves rolled up and covered with heavy wax. They have a thick skin with an anti-freeze like fluid inside the leaf cells. Their small surface area slows the natural evaporation process and allows the heavy snow of winter to easily sift through its branches before causing damage to tree limbs. Also, these leaves don't respond to the environmental clues that tell them to go dormant, the trees keep on producing chlorophyll. They use the green pigment to capture the Sun's energy and convert it to chemical energy via photosynthesis. That's why evergreens stay green. Throughout the winter the evergreen also has the ability to turn photosynthesis on and off depending on the temperature.

On cold winter mornings, I wouldn't mind some of that antifreeze sap flowing in my fingers.

What an amazing design, only God could have crafted such a tree, one that defies the cold of winter to declare his glory, even in the cold forests of the Northland.





I will plant the cedar in the wilderness, the acacia tree, and the myrtle, and the oil tree. I will set the fir tree in the desert, and the pine, and the box tree together;
so that they may see, and know, and look on, and understand together, that the hand of God has created it. Isa 41:19