Dependable Fall Color

This is the dangerous time of year when it comes to driving – I have a hard time keeping my eyes on the road as I pass woody plants in their coats of fall color. Nature does a great job of creating colorful arrangements of red, yellow and orange in the wild landscape. Grape vines (Vitis spp.) winding through evergreen pines, hidden until now, reveal themselves with vibrant yellow leaves while wild sumacs (Rhus spp.) turn a brilliant red on dry ridges.

Oaks can have great fall color

You can recreate this color show in your own landscape by choosing trees and shrubs that are known for their fall color. Native plants have some of the best color – they are the plants coloring up the North Georgia mountains and creating beautiful vistas in State Parks. If you’re looking to identify some of what you see in the wild, you may want to look at my posts on fall color: the yellows and the orange/red/purples.

When selecting plants for your own landscape, decide if you’re looking for a particular color. Perhaps you already have a good selection of plants that turn red in the fall and you want to add some yellows. As always, evaluate your site conditions too – most plants that provide the best colors are full sun plants and many are large trees. Make sure you have the right conditions.

Parking lot red maples, likely 'Autumn Blaze'

Trees and shrubs that provide dependable red/purple color in the fall (all of these are medium to large trees unless noted otherwise):

Scarlet oak (Quercus coccinea) has good color and is fast growing.

Red maple (Acer rubrum) cultivars like 'October Glory' and hybrids like Acer x freemanii 'Autumn Blaze'. The species red maple is quite variable in color and may not even turn red.

Black gum (Nyssa sylvatica) species and cultivars like 'Wildfire' and 'Red Rage'.

Dogwood (Cornus florida) has amazing red color; it is a small tree and needs part shade.

Sourwood (Oxydendrum arboreum) has a range of fall color from pinks to purples.

Virginia sweetspire (Itea virginica) is a shrub; look for cultivars like 'Merlot' and 'Henry's Garnet' for best color. 'Little Henry' is a dwarf form.

Blueberry (Vaccinium spp.) is a family of shrubs; purchase cultivated plants and get both summer fruit and good fall color.

Dogwood on the left, Sourwood on the right

Sassafras has great orange color

Hickory (Carya) is the tall yellow in many wild areas

Trees that provide dependable orange color in the fall:

Sassafras (Sassafras albidum) is often overlooked until fall when the screaming fall color grabs everyone's attention.

Sugar maple (Acer saccharum) has a great fall display as the tree changes from green to orange in a wave of color from top to bottom.

Trees that provide dependable yellow color in the fall:

Hickory (Carya spp.) is the tall yellow color in almost every beautiful roadside display. The deep butter yellow leaves remain on the tree a long time, gradually fading to brown.

Smoketree (Cotinus obovatus) has both interesting flowers and good color.

Bottlebrush buckeye (Aesculus parviflora) is a large shrub that has much better color than red buckeye. The yellow drooping leaves make a handsome display for several weeks.

Southern sugar maple (Acer barbatum) turns a soft clear yellow, quite unlike the orange of northern sugar maple. It is at home as an understory tree in the woods around me.

Bottlebrush buckeye

American smoketree (Cotinus obovatus)

Trees and shrubs that provide a mix of colors:

Sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua) is not a tree that most people deliberately plant, but the kaleidoscope of colors on the same tree can make you appreciate the ones you have.

Chalk maple (Acer leucoderme) is a rather small maple with an attractive range of colors.

Viburnum (Viburnum spp.) shrubs such as mapleleaf viburnum (Viburnum acerifolium) and blackhaw viburnum (V. prunifolium) have wonderful fall colors.

Fothergilla (Fothergilla major) is a spring blooming shrub that you can appreciate again come fall.

Oakleaf hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia) is handsome year round thanks to fall color and peeling winter bark.

 

Fothergilla major

 
Remember – a bit of green makes the colors pop so be sure to mix in a few evergreens like pines to complement your red, orange and yellow foliage.

Native Birds Like Native Plants

I’m not a birder, but I like birds. I like being able to recognize them. I like being able to support them.

I’m a gardener. In the process of being a gardener, I have learned more about birds. I’ve learned that what I do in the garden affects not only what birds come through my garden but also what birds stay in my garden.

Catbird eating beautyberry (Callicarpa americana)

The single most important thing I’ve learned is this: birds eat different things. They don’t all eat seeds, or berries, or sip red-colored sugar water from glass bottles. Birds can be categorized by what they eat primarily:

• Frugivores eat berries and fleshy fruits. These include cedar waxwings, mockingbirds/catbirds, and tanagers.
• Granivores eat seeds. These include finches, cardinals, sparrows, goldfinches, pigeons, and doves.
• Insectivores eat insects. These include warblers, swallows, wrens, woodpeckers, titmouse, eastern phoebe, bluebird, American robin, brown thrasher, vireos, and the whip-poor-will.
• Nectivores eat nectar. Hummingbirds are the best example.
• Omnivores eat plants and insects both. These include turkeys, crows, and the bluejay.

(There are also birds that eat other birds, dead animals, fish, and probably other things. Those will not be covered here!)

Thanks for the seed!

The amazing thing to learn (for me) is just how many birds eat insects as their primary food source. If you’re putting out a seed feeder, one group of birds is interested. A few birds from other groups will visit – like the titmouse (who love peanuts) and the chickadee, with even less frequent occurrences of bluejays and certain species of woodpeckers.

Thanks for the caterpillar!

Look at the birds in your yard and think about those you are already attracting. What are your successes? Do you see many from the Insectivore group? If so, consider yourself lucky that you have free pest control services! If you don’t have many, you might like to know how you can attract some of these birds.

You’ll need more insects.

Oh no! Most people don’t want MORE insects. I don’t mean more mosquitos or more yellow jackets. I mean the insects that eat plants. Insects that eat plants are mostly caterpillars, and caterpillars are the larval form of butterflies and moths.

Zebra longwing on nectar plant

So you need more butterflies and moths. And you need for them to lay eggs ... on your plants. Do you remember hearing about how the monarch butterfly only lays eggs on a certain plant - the milkweed plant? There are many other butterflies (and moths) that have equally specific host plant requirements - their caterpillars only eat certain plants. The Gulf Fritillary and the Zebra longwing butterflies lay eggs on passionflower (Passiflora). Some butterflies have several host plants - the eastern tiger swallowtail butterfly lays eggs on several different host plants – tuliptree (Liriodendron tulipifera), black cherry (Prunus serotina), spicebush (Lindera benzoin), and sassafras (Sassafras albidum). Every butterfly and moth has one or several host plants - and they are native plants.

That's right - native insects prefer to munch on native plants. And since most of our insects are native insects ... you'll have much more food for the birds when you use native plants.

If you'd like to learn more about what plants you can incorporate to increase the biodiversity of insects (and birds) in your yard, have a look at this "top twenty" chart with data from Doug Tallamy.  It provides the top twenty woody and the top twenty herbaceous plants (by genus) in the mid-Atlantic region. That works pretty well for those of us in Georgia too.

Asters, Asters, Asters

An annual workshop offered by the Georgia Botanical Society is called “Aster, Asters, Asters” and it provides hands on learning about members of the Asteraceae family. Look for it every fall on their schedule – I have been twice now and learned just as much the second time. This post, despite having the same name, is about what gardeners call “Asters” – that is, those beautiful fall flowers that look like delicate daisies in the fall but come in shades of white, blue and purple.

Late purple aster, Symphyotrichum patens

Aster is a very convenient name, easy to pronounce and easy to remember. That’s why several years ago the taxonomists decided to change all that. Most of the fall blooming North American asters now reside in the genus Symphyotrichum with a few others scattered into other places (like Eurybia). Apparently DNA studies found that North American plants known as Aster were quite different from Eurasian plants known as Aster. Unfortunately Eurasian asters got to keep the old name! You can read more about the change here.

Asters in the genus Symphyotrichum bloom on wiry stems that probably look like weeds to many folks that have not witnessed their transformation in person. The leaves are either rough in texture or small in size - neither attributes designed to win the hearts of gardeners. However, once their blooms open up and reveal those beautiful flowers - every gardener will be wanting to make a place for them!

Georgia aster, Symphyotrichum georgianum

The beautiful Georgia aster (Symphyotrichum georgianum) is listed as threatened in the state. I feel fortunate to live in an area where it grows naturally. The blooms are the largest and have the deepest shade of purple. The disk flowers in the center start out with a cream color (not yellow like other asters); they age to purple, intensifying the overall purple color of the flower.

Compared to the Georgia aster, late purple aster (Symphyotrichum patens) - shown in the first picture - is slightly smaller, a lighter shade of purple, and has a yellow center. However, the foliage of the two species is very similar; I can't distinguish one from the other unless the plant is blooming.

Eastern silver aster, Symphyotrichum concolor

Another blue aster in my area is the eastern silver aster (Symphyotrichum concolor). The habit of this plant is different from the previous ones. Flower buds are closely held against a long stem as are many small leaves. The effect is quite beautiful when the blooms are open.

Symphyotrichum oblongifolium 'Raydon's Favorite'

New England aster (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae) is listed as native to Georgia but only sparsely; it is much more common in the mid-Atlantic and New England areas. However it is very showy, with large blue-pink blooms; it has been bred by nurserymen into a popular fall plant with a dense floral display. Aromatic aster (Symphyotrichum oblongifolium) and New York aster (Symphyotrichum novi-belgii), which are not native to Georgia, are also showy. I found the cultivar Symphyotrichum oblongifolium 'Raydon's Favorite' at a plant sale this weekend and people were snapping it up. It was also planted in the venue's gardens where it was doing quite well.


Aren't those blue and purple asters pretty?  White asters, however, are the true workhorses of the local aster world. They are the ones popping up in strange places as well as dominating the side of the roads in their season. In fact they are so ubiquitous that people take them for granted. Let's take a few minutes to celebrate their floral awesomeness!

Calico aster, Symphyotrichum lateriflorum

The calico aster (Symphyotrichum lateriflorum) has a lot of character. It has a relatively modest number of flowers, but they put on a colorful show. Like the Georgia aster and others, the disk flowers in the center change color over time and that allows for the different colors. Several cultivars are available including 'Lady in Black' which as burgundy-colored foliage.

Symphyotrichum dumosum

The two white asters vying for the title of "most flowers on a plant" are bushy aster (Symphyotrichum dumosum) and one with the name of "smooth white oldfield aster" (Symphyotrichum racemosum). I've spent many hours with cuttings and a hand lens trying to figure out the difference between some of these roadside asters. Distinguishing characteristics include flower size (in centimeters!), length of petiole, presence of hairs, whether the flowers are predominantly arranged on side of the stem, length and shape of leaves, and the look of the bracts underneath the flower itself.

I have both of these white asters in my garden, and this week, while taking pictures for this, I discovered a third one that is completely different. Maybe they are mutating!

Symphyotrichum racemosum

You can see that the flower arrangement on these two is quite different. A contributing factor is the length of the stem holding the flower. The stem on S. dumosum is long, allowing each flower to stand out as an individual.  The stem on S. racemosum is small so that the flowers appear more as a group, each held close to the branch. The flowers are also all facing in the same direction, presenting a very wand-like form (or a raceme, which explains how it got that species name).



Asters in the genus Eurybia have stems and leaves that are different from Symphyotrichum species in terms of shape and texture (that is, stems are not wiry and leaves are smooth, not rough). I suppose that it one reason why the two groups of aster now reside in different genera.

White wood aster, Eurybia divaricata

The white wood aster (Eurybia divaricata) often blooms earlier in the summer than other asters. The leaves are noticeably larger than the Symphyotrichum asters. Unfortunately this seems to make them tastier to deer so I try to protect mine. This is a pretty common part-shade perennial in my area, often overlooked until it starts to bloom.

Showy aster, Eurybia spectabilis

The other member of this genus in my area is the showy aster, Eurybia spectabilis. The purple blooms are very attractive, and there are often multiple flowers blooming at once. The leaves are quite unlike the white wood aster; they are smooth, dark green and fairly narrow.




If you're looking for some input on asters to choose, I recommend reading this report created by the Mt. Cuba Center based on their garden trials.