Take time to appreciate the fall foliage

I think that I enjoy the fall season more than any other seasons, because it's Mother Nature's turn to show off all of her hard work. It's also the perfect time for us to add color to our yards by looking at the colors of the foliage around us. If you enjoy red flowers in your garden during the summer months, then why not plant shrubs and trees that have red foliage during the fall months?

Fall is a season for every color in the rainbow--from reds to pinks, gold, orange, and yellow. So look around you at your gardens and your friends' gardens as you drive around town or on the trip to the mountains for the fabulous fall foliage color. Then visit your local nursery and take advantage of their fall sales to add color to your garden during the fall months. Here are some of my favorite plants to add color to your yard this fall.

Let us start with the trees, because they form the canopy over and around our property and will give us the most color for our money. The color of the foliage will vary from year to year, depending on the rainfall during the summer months and during the early weeks of fall. Also helping to determine the color is the temperature during the color changeover and the health of the tree overall. The length of the color on the tree is also determined by the weather and all it takes is a big rain and wind storm and the show is over--but nice "Indian Summer" weather will extend the show of fall foliage for many extra days.

• The Maple family: Has the best color in the fall and a wide selection of colors to choose from but there are many other trees just as beautiful to look at, so print this list when you go "Leaf Peeping."
  • Norway Maple: best shades of yellow to gold and even a bit of orange on the same leaf.
  • The Norway maple Hybrid 'Crimson King' has reddish purple leaves spring to fall.
  • Red Maple: Brilliant and the best reds, with splashes of orange and yellow mixed on the same tree.
  • Silver Maple: Yellow and orange blend with a splash of red on the same tree.
• The Oak family: Known for shades of reds and deep green on the same leaf that will often develop later during the fall season and fade to reddish-brown. Some varieties hold the leaves well into winter.
• The Birch family: known for bright golden yellow foliage and the wonderful white papery looking bark.
• White Ash: known for the reds and purple shades mixed on the foliage.
• Green Ash: known for superb yellow to gold foliage.
• Beech family: known for bright yellow to golden brown to brown leaves that stay on the tree until winter.
• Ginkgo: brilliant bright yellow for many days but all the leaves will fall from the tree at the same time.
• Elms: shades of yellow with lines of green running thru it before turning brown and falling.
• The Linden family: shades of striking yellow to gold foliage.
• The Flowering Pear family: starts as a shiny yellow-orange then changes to red. Striking.
• The Flowering Crabapples: shades of deep bright orange and red on the same leaf.
• The Dogwood family: red to reddish purple and red to bright orange on the same leaves.
• The Shadblow family: bright orange and very striking.
• The Weeping Willow family: bright and shiny yellow foliage.
• The Mountain Ash family: showy golden yellow foliage.
• The Sourwood: begins yellow, then turns to shades of red and maroon foliage.
• The Dawn Redwood: an evergreen needle that will turn orange-brown to reddish-brown and drop.
• The Larch family: an evergreen needle that will turn bright yellow to gold and drop.

Here are a few suggestions for the best shrubs for fall foliage color for your yard and your gardens! Many of these shrubs also have beautiful flowers and fruit on them so the fall foliage is just an added benefit to the plant. Fall is for planting, so take advantage of the sales at your local nursery and get your yard landscaped this month and save money at the same time.

The Burning Bush is the KING of all fall foliage shrubs. In some states it has been removed from the nurseries and is not available for sale because these states overplanted them along the roadways and they have become invasive. These states will not agree with me but see for yourself when you drive along the highways how many are planted on the side of overpasses to prevent erosion, to give color to the highway and make the roadways look more beautiful during your many hours of traveling.

You all know the Burning Bush because of its wonderful bright fire-engine red foliage during the month of October. I Have several in my yard and have never seen seedlings develop around the plants, but because state horticulturists who overplanted them have passed a law preventing them from being sold, you are no longer able to purchase them in my state. If you have a Burning Bush in your yard please look around your property for seedlings and let me know if your plants have become invasive!

• The Viburnum family: varying shades of reds to reddish purple and very showy.
• The Witchhazel family: brilliant yellow to orange foliage.
• The Enkianthus family: bright red foliage with a bit of yellow splash on the inner leaves of the plant.
• The Sumac family: rich reds, scarlet, maroon and some new hybrids shades of yellow foliage.
• The Shrub-type Dogwoods: shades of red foliage with colorful stems that are red or golden yellow.
• The Fothergilla family: wonderful shades of yellow, orange, and red blended on the foliage.
• Oakleaf Hydrangea: unusual shades of reds to purples on the foliage.
• Rhododendron PJM: burgundy red fall color
• Rhododendron mucronulatum: Deciduous variety with yellow fall foliage.
• The Cotoneaster family: shiny bright red to reddish purple.
• Bridal wreath: orange and red combinations on the foliage.
• Forsythia family: green and burgundy foliage
• Kerria family: pale to medium yellow foliage.
• Blueberries: shades of yellow, orange and changing to bronze and red foliage.
• The Leucothoe family: rich wine to burgundy evergreen foliage during the winter months.

There are a few vines and ground covers with good fall color that you should also look for at your local nursery. Most plants stay green or the foliage falls off the plant green in the fall season, but look for these two plants and you will not go wrong.

Boston ivy: bright reds, crimson and even new hybrids with yellow foliage, the best vine for fall color.

Euonymus Coloratus: my favorite ground cover will turn a plum-purple color from the first frost and last until the new growth develops in the spring before turning green again.

When selecting plants for your yard and garden it is always better to select plants that will provide you with more than one quality while in your care. The flowers are nice but they can only last for so long and if fall color is also available you have a plant with two qualities, not just flowers for 4 to 8 weeks a year. Enjoy!

I have one more suggestion for you for this fall. If you have family or friends who live in an area of the country where the foliage does not change colors in the fall, do this for them. Pick an assortment of colorful leaves and stuff a bag with them, then send them out to them where they live. I do this every year and take a large zip lock bag. Place a couple paper towels that are wet to cover the leaves and place in the bag. The leaves stay moist and hold their color until they get there. I use a Priority Mail envelop from the post office and it gets there in a couple of days for less than $10.00. It's a wonderful gift for people who have moved out of the area; it will bring back many memories for them. Great for the grandkids who live in the South where the closest thing to colorful plants is ORANGES on a tree. Enjoy!

Enjoy your fall berries

Right now we are all enjoying the beautiful fall foliage but soon the magical colors will disappear and our garden will begin to look a bit drab! Unless...you planned ahead by planting shrubs and trees that not only flower but make beautiful fruit or berries for the fall and winter months. When most gardeners think of plants with berries, they think of holly--but there is so much more for your garden and there is no better time to learn about these berries than now when they are on the plants. Plants that make berries come in two categories, summer and winter types. Because it's fall, let me tell you about the winter types of berry plants for your garden.

Let's begin with the wonderful trees that produce clusters of fruit in many colors and shapes to feed our birds during the fall and winter months. Yes, the berries are beautiful to look at, but their main purpose is to provide food for birds and wildlife during the winter months when most native plants are dormant or covered with snow. My favorite is the European Mountain Ash because of the wonderful white flower clusters in the spring and large clusters of bright orange fruit that develop during September.

I planted an 8 foot tall tree at my parents' house in the late 70's and today it's well over 40 feet tall. I would often watch the birds pick the berries from the tree around the Thanksgiving holiday. One Thanksgiving morning, my grandfather and I were having coffee and watching the birds from the kitchen table, when he told me this story about the Mountain Ash tree. My grandfather's name was Romeo Parent but everybody called him POP. I always called him "The Fisherman" because he loved nothing more than going fishing--and he often took me along. When I got older, it was my turn to take him fishing and we spent many wonderful hours together fishing--but let me tell you the story he told me about the Mountain Ash tree.

POP lived in the days of Prohibition, when beer and liquor were outlawed but POP and his friends used to pick the berries from the wild Mountain Ash trees growing in Maine to make homemade wine with them. Despite the law, almost everyone he knew made their own alcohol with wild berries and fruit like apples, pears, and peaches. POP told me that his favorite homemade wine was from the Mountain Ash tree and every time I see the Mountain Ash Tree I think of my Grandfather. If you're looking to plant trees with wonderful fruit go to your local nursery and ask to look at the following trees:

• The Flowering Crabapple family: Not all varieties make fruit, so be sure to ask for ideas from the nurseryman and for his suggestions. Some of my favorites are.
• Japanese Flowering Crabapple: with yellow to red fruit.
• Tea Crabapple: with golden fruit with a red blotch.
• Sargent Crabapple: with red fruit.
• Donald Wyman: with glossy red fruit.
• Harvest Gold: with glossy gold fruit.
• Zumi: with golden yellow fruit.
• Red Jade: red fruit
• Weeping Candied Apple: with cherry red fruit.
• Spring Flowering Dogwood: with jelly bean shaped red fruit.
• Kousa Dogwood: with a raspberry shaped red fruit.
• Magnolias: red to pink fruit in a pod that will break open to reveal the fruit.
• Sourwood: white early, then turning to brown.
• The Flowering Pear family: green to yellow.
• The Hawthorn family: Glossy red to reddish purple fruit.
• Red Cedar: powdery blue fruit.
• Russian-Olive: silvery green fruit.
• Autumn- Olive: burnt orange to red fruit.

If your yard has no room for trees, here are a few wonderful shrubs with unique fruit for both evergreen and deciduous plants. Here are some evergreen plants with much to offer your garden.

• Oregon Grape Holly: clusters of dusty bright blue fruit.
• The Holly family: clusters of bright shiny red and some gold fruit.
• The Skimmia family: clusters of bright red fruit.
• The Ilex family: shiny black fruit.
• The Cotoneaster family: bright red fruit.
• The Evergreen Euonymus family: red to pink fruit that will break open and reveal orange seeds.
• The Daphne family: red fruit.
• The Inkberry family: dark blue to black fruit.
• The Pyracantha family: My favorite shrub with bright orange to orange-red fruit clusters, and also yellow.

Here are some wonderful deciduous plants with wonderful fruit clusters. Fruit is showy with and without foliage on the plant. With snow on the ground they are spectacular.

• The Viburnum family: This is the largest family of fruit bearing plants; they vary in many shades of red to reddish-purple, blue, and black. If you want birds you will need the Viburnum family on your property.
• Bayberry family: Dusty blue fruit.
• Barberry family: Oval red to yellow fruit.
• Snowberry; beautiful white fruit clusters.
• Burning Bush: red to pink fruit that will break open to reveal orange seeds.
• Privet Hedges: with wonderful blue black fruit clusters.
• Rosa Rugosa: Bright orange fruit that changes to red.
• The Beautyberry family: white, pink, and purple fruit clusters. A must-see plant in the fall.
• Winterberry family: My favorite deciduous plant, with shiny red fruit clusters that cover the new growth on the plant. Winterberry is often sold during Christmas to put in window boxes outside for the winter with greens.

***During the fall season many of us will go to pick dry weeds and wild flowers for dry arrangements. Bittersweet is wonderful and the many dry pods found in fields and forest areas work well in your arrangements, but be careful not to pick silver gray berry clusters that grow on a vine along the ground or on the side of a tree. POISON IVY makes a nice silver gray berry often confused with Bayberry shrub. Before you pick, smell the plant for the Bayberry fragrance on the branches! If there is no fragrance it could be Poison Ivy and as you pick it and hold the branches in your arms, you will be in for a surprise the following morning!!! Look first, think and then pick your wild plants and berries. Enjoy!!!

"All gardens  are a form of autobiography "

Robert Dash

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