Add a little curb appeal

Forays into the front yard

By Amy McDowell

The 100-foot tall honeylocust in my in-laws’ front yard was the tallest tree in their neighborhood. It had a trunk nearly 4 feet wide. It stood on the corner of their front yard and shaded their two-bedroom cottage for all of the 15 years they had lived there. Leafing out golden yellow in spring, it filled the sky with a light green canopy of dappled shade during the summer and showered the ground in the fall as tiny golden leaflets fluttered down like confetti. A wren house mounted on the side hosted a dainty couple and a new brood of hatchlings each season.

Then an October ice storm eight years ago brought the honeylocust crashing down in a shattered wreck of jagged wood and leaf litter.

Although devastated, my in-laws took little time to grieve. Ever anxious to keep a tidy yard, they sprang into action. They bagged leaves and twigs and piled branches on the curb for city yard waste pickup, hired one company to drop and haul off the decapitated trunk that had been left standing, and hired another company to grind out the stump.

While I was still mourning the loss of the tree, my mother-in-law was brushing the sawdust from her gloves and envisioning something new for her front yard. “I’d like to put in a new bed,” she said. “Something with a lot of color.” And off she went to the garden center. She returned with a tree, a half a dozen shrubs, some annuals, a concrete birdbath and a new wren house.

We hauled in three granite boulders and edged the two lower sides of the bed with stone pavers. My in-laws planted the ‘Autumn Sunset’ maple first, about five feet from where the honeylocust had stood. My mother-in-law hung the birdhouse on a high branch with the hope that her annual visitors would return to the strange new surroundings. Groupings of red pygmy barberries and golden privet fill the bed with color, and clusters of bright red annuals sing along the sidewalk. The wrens did return, and the birdbath drew crowds. My mother-in-law so enjoyed the activity through her kitchen window that she added a bird feeder.

Before their front yard venture, their neighborhood had nothing but garnish-around-the-turkey, home-hugging landscapes and driveway-to-driveway turf. My trendsetter in-laws were the first to break ground with an island bed in the front yard, but by the following spring, many neighbors were following suit and planting new front yard beds.

With this one bed, my in-laws added curb appeal, reduced their mowing and maintenance, attracted wildlife and began a new landscaping movement in their neighborhood. The loss of their immense shade tree ended up turning into something wonderful. “Yeah, it was pretty amazing,” says my mother-in-law.

Amy McDowell is an Iowa Certified Nursery Professional. She has a degree in horticulture and has worked in the field for ten years. She lives and gardens in Polk County.

Fall Color

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.

Amy McDowell is an Iowa Certified Nursery Professional. She has an associate’s degree in commercial horticulture and has worked in the field for ten years. She lives and gardens in Polk County.