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the
Changing
Fall
Landscape
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What’s your favorite fall
foliage color—red? orange? yellow? purple? All
of the above? The last week in September and the
first week in October has traditionally been the
peak season for fall foliage color in western
Nebraska. A warmer than normal September has pushed
that back a week or two this year, but a weekend
drive through eastern Wyoming this past weekend
presented many sweeping vistas of golden fall
foliage against a backdrop of distant blue
mountains. With plenty of cottonwoods, green ash,
and American elms yellow has been the traditionally
dominant fall foliage color in Wyobraska.
Fall foliage color has always
been one of the criteria by which homeowners
selected trees and shrubs for their landscapes.
Unfortunately, many of the trees and shrubs which
turn fall landscapes red, orange, and purple in
other areas of the country aren’t well adapted to
the climate and/or soils of Wyobraska. Which is why
the traditional choice for fall color in a Wyobraska
landscape has been yellow, yellow, yellow, or
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Fall foliage is not the only landscape show
in Wyobraska—the late summer and early autumn show
of large perennial and annual flowers and late
summer flowering shrubs like hibiscus, hydrangea,
shrub roses, and blue mist spirea adds a diversity
visual interest to Wyobraska landscapes that is
beginning to be truly impressive.
Ornamental grasses are also at their peak through
this period, and the same wind that blows the leaves
off the trees, merely makes the ornamental grasses
do a harvest jig.
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Previous Articles
It's
Finally Spring - March 13
Spring Garden Calendar-March 20
No
Garden Left Behind-March 27
Planting Trees for a Cooler Earth in a Warmer
WyoBraska-April 3
Viburnums - Shrubs for Wyobraska Springs-April 10
Want A Water Conserving Lawn? You might already have
one-
April 17
Creating Long
Term
Tree-lationships April 24
Bigger, Bolder, Brighter,
Better—and Back In The Landscape May 01 & 08
Hardy Shrub
Roses
May 15
Another Look
at Native Plants
May 22
No Child
Left Inside
May 29
June
is Tree Care Month June 05
Summer Blooming Shrubs
June 12
Roses Are
Red.....
June 19
The Plants They will be Talking About Next Year at
the Garden Walk
June 26
Busy Summertime Gardens
July 03
Cutting Your Lawn Down to Size
July 10
July 17
Insect Paranoia
If It Will Grow In Wyoming...
July 24
Rain Gardens
July31
WyoBraska Native Grass & Wildflower Lawn
August 7
A Real WyoBraska Peach?
(Fruit Trees) August 14
Fall is for Planting
August 21
A Recipe for Enjoying Autumn Landscapes August 28
Seeing Red in your Landscape
September 4
Four Questions to Ask A Plant
September 11
September Plants
September 18
Mulch, Nature's Winter Blanket
September 25
Welcome to Hardiness Zone 5
October 2
2007 Articles
2006 Articles |
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But the added fall color of a
more diverse range of tree species planted after the
great die-off of American and Siberian elm over the
past 20 years is now beginning to show up in
Wyobraska landscapes. Autumn purple ash, a few
sugar maples, red and white oaks, and more and more
viburnums and serviceberries are adding red and
orange hues to what has been a traditionally yellow
Wyobraska fall landscape. A fall foliage drive
around any community in Wyobraska is all that is
required to show that red, orange, and maroon fall
foliage are now options for Wyobraska homeowners.
A Canadian cold front is
predicted to move through the region this weekend
bringing the first widespread freezing temperatures
and perhaps a few flakes of snow. But when Indian
summer returns next week, Wyobraska landscapes
should be in peak fall color.
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Some autumn blooming perennials
like asters, fall sedums, native rudbeckia, and
goldenrod ‘fireworks’ are still blooming, as are
many shrub roses. Tall, sturdy, summer blooming
perennials like rudbeckia, yarrow, coneflower,
monarda, Shasta daisy ‘becky’, joe pye weed, and
baptisia are also still standing in the landscape,
creating a fullness that is unmatched in any other
season.
It’s a fullness, by the
way, that lends itself to creating timely seasonal
displays for both Halloween and Thanksgiving.
Pumpkins, shocks of corn, bales of straw all blend
in well to either invite or to scare the beejeebies
out of those Trick-or-Treaters that will be showing
up in a couple of weeks.
The other big change now
occurring in Wyobraska landscapes is that the
evergreen trees and shrubs are beginning to emerge
from their summertime visual hibernation to first
serve as a backdrop for the colorful fall fireworks
and then to anchor the winter landscape. During
the summertime they retreat into the camouflage of
all of those other green trees and shrubs, and
virtually disappear as a distinct group of plants.
In the wintertime, they provide a welcome green
counterpoint to all of the gray, brown, and white of
our longest landscape season.
So, on your way to the soccer
or football game for the next few weekends enjoy the
beautiful fall landscapes.
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