Fall Color from Trees
Enjoy the beauty of fall with colorful trees
The cold nights of fall bring beautiful colors to the leaves of deciduous trees. Liquidambars, maples, Chinese pistache, Raywood ash, European white birch, dogwoods and flowering pear trees brighten the landscape with their colorful leaves. Now is a good time to choose trees that have fall color, and fall is an excellent time to plant trees of any type.
When choosing a tree, it is important to decide just how large a tree you want. Width is easy to measure and for height, figure that a building is about 10 feet tall per story, plus attic height. So a one-story house may be 15 to 20 feet tall, and a two-story house 25 to 30 feet tall. Most trees are at least 30 feet tall and some grow to 60 feet or more, providing good shade over the roof for summer cooling.
Liquidambar and European white birch are both tall, slender trees. White birch trees grow to 45 feet tall with a spread of 30 feet. They turn bright yellow in the fall. Their white bark is particularly attractive in winter.
Liquidambar trees grow to 60 feet tall with a narrow pyramidal form. Their fall colors range from yellow, peach and orange to flaming red and burgundy. They are tall, stately trees which make attractive street trees where overhead wires are not a problem.
Chinese pistache is a round-headed tree that turns a fiery ball of red, orange and green in autumn. It is a very eye-catching tree. It grows to 35 feet tall and 25 feet wide. Raywood ash trees are fast-growing with fine-textured foliage that makes a dense, rounded crown. They grow to 35 feet with a 25-foot spread and turn a beautiful reddish-purple color in fall.
Red maple trees have striking fall color, grow to 40 or 50 feet tall, and make wonderful shade trees. Big leaf maple is native in this area growing along stream banks to 60 feet tall. Its bright yellow leaves in fall glow like candles among the evergreens.
The flowering pear trees are known for their beautiful white spring blossoms as well as their colorful fall foliage. They grow 35 to 40 feet tall with a 25-foot spread, and turn red and gold late in the fall season, holding their colorful leaves most of the winter.
Dogwood trees are beautiful small trees growing 20 feet tall and wide. In spring, white, pink or red blossoms cover the tree and in fall their round leaves turn beautiful shades of red. Japanese maples are another small tree with delicate green or red leaves throughout the summer which turn a bright scarlet in the fall.
Choose trees now for fall beauty in your yard.
- • Tulips can paint the spring garden with almost any color you choose. Plant them now to enjoy their bright flowers next April.
- • Compost falling leaves to make excellent garden mulch by next season.
- • Clean up dead foliage on perennials like peonies, daylilies and balloon flower and cut back dead flower stems on Echinacea, blanket flower and penstemon.
- • Plant pansies, snapdragons, stock, calendulas and primroses now to replace summer annuals.
- • Seed slopes with annual ryegrass to prevent erosion and improve the soil for later plantings.
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