Fall Color in the landscape

The New England landscape is famous for its fall display of colorful trees and attracting tourists from all over the world. Our native maples, birches, and beeches grab the spotlight, calling our attention to the larger landscape around us.  However, in smaller scale gardens, there are many choices available to provide just as spectacular a show. With a little extra care in plant selection and positioning, October can rival May for the most colorful month of the year.

Many home landscapes do not have the space to incorporate large 40-75’ trees, or do not want to comprise so much sunlight to fit these species in the design. There are smaller tree options that provide stunning fall color, with added ornamental features. Brilliant red and orange leaves cover the Sourwood tree, Oxydendrum arboretum, a 25’ pyramidal tree that also has white lily of the valley like flowers in July and August. The American Hornbeam, Carpinus caroliniana is another 25’ tree with fine textured serrated leaves that turn yellow and orange in the fall.  Understory maples have all the color of their taller relatives and Acer griseum, sieboldii, and ginnala are all good choices for small spaces.

Red leaf Japanese Maples turn even more intense red in the fall and green leaf variety can have yellow, red, and orange coloring all at once.  Large shrubs such as Amelanchier Autumn Brilliance’ and Viburnum ‘Autumn Jazz’ are good choices too.

For shrubs, the fall color of Itea ‘Henry’s Garnet’ and ‘Little Henry’ are great plants for naturalizing that has fragrant flowers in late June and turns almost fluorescent red in the fall. Blueberry, Azaleas, Fothergilla, Gro-Low Sumac, Enkianthus, and Cranberrybush Viburnum all put on a dazzling show for weeks in the fall.

Leaves are not the only source of color around as colorful berries and bark really become apparent as the leaves start to fall. Crabapples are weighted down with yellow, red, or orange fruit as well as Hawthorn, Viburnum, Juniper and Winterberry.

Many perennials grown for their flowers earlier in the season come back into the spotlight to put on a fall display that brings brilliant color to the ground plane. Geranium, Euphorbia, Platycodon, Ceratostigma, and Peony are some of the brightest in shades from golden yellow to bright red. Bergenia, Epimedium, Tiarella, Iris siberica, Autumn Fern, and all of the ornamental grasses also put on a grand finale before bowing out for the winter.