Raging Red and Flaming Orange
Bold fall colors for your garden
By Amy McDowell
Iowa is blazing with spectacular fall color.
You still have time to plant some color in your garden this year. Take a trip
to your local garden center and take a look at the vibrant rainbow of warm
colors available in trees and shrubs.
Some of the most glorious trees right now
are the red and sugar maples decked out in red and orange, and the white and
green ashes wearing fall purple and golden yellow hues. Red maples (Acer rubrum) mature to about 40 to 60
feet tall with a rounded canopy. Sugar maples (Acer saccharum) reach 60 to 75 feet tall and tend to be taller than
they are broad. Red and sugar maples turn to stunning reds and oranges in the
fall. White ash trees (Fraxinus americana)
will generally color to royal purple in the fall and green ash (Fraxinus pennsylvanica) will turn
vibrant golden yellow. Depending on the variety, ash trees range from 40 to 70
feet tall.
At the garden center, you will find named
varieties of maple and ash trees. Named varieties are essentially clones
sharing the same genes. The advantage to a clone is that you can be guaranteed
genetic traits such as spectacular fall color. Trees grown from seed are
genetically diverse and fall color will vary from one plant to another.
If you are thinking about planting shrubs
rather than trees, take a look at the intense colors of sumac, burning bush,
fothergilla, viburnum, and witch hazel. Sumac (Rhus typhina) is the brilliant red you see along roadsides right
now. It is a suckering shrub, so it forms a loose mound about 15 feet tall and
about as wide as you will allow it to spread. Burning bush (Euonymus alatus) will stay in bounds at
about ten feet high and wide. It is often used as a hedge, and can be kept to a
more compact height if you prune it. Fothergilla (F. gardenii) will mature to around four feet and colors to a fiery
red-orange-yellow combination in the fall. Viburnums (V. species) are Iowa
natives, so they are tough and resilient. To choose a viburnum with great fall
color, buy them right now. They turn shades of red and orange, but some species
are bold while others are bland. Witch hazel (Hamamelis vernalis) is another red shrub you may see on roadsides
right now. It will grow to about eight feet tall and ten feet wide.
Finally, there is the fierce red maple that
is too short to be a shade tree, but pretty tall to be a shrub. It is the amur
maple. You will see drifts of these along Iowa’s roadways that have been
planted by the Department of Transportation. The stunning amur maples (Acer ginnala) often have a multi-stem
trunk and grow to about 18 feet tall.
