Have you ever wanted to drive through the mountains, just to look at the trees? You don’t have to leave home for beautiful fall color, you can also add it to your home landscape. There are many trees and shrubs that can provide lots of fall color in our area.
When temperatures drop, the chlorophyll in the leaves begins to fade, revealing a rainbow of color: yellow, orange, red and purple. Once the leaves fall, the canopy goes through a rest period but there is still activity in the dark, colorless world beneath the soil that continues on. Roots extend to new soil, and organic material from fallen leaves provides nutrients to the trees.
Fall is a great time to plant trees and establish your own fall color in the landscape. Red buds, sweet shrub and burning bush all provide a fiery red, which you will also see from scarlet and crimson red oaks and a dark red from black gums. Golden hornbeam, gingko biloba and beech provide bright, gorgeous yellows.
Here are some landscape trees that can also give you great fall color:
• Sourwood is seldom planted in yards but is an excellent tree with brilliant, deep red fall leaves.
• Sugar maple (Acer saccharum) is well known for its brilliant yellow, orange and scarlet fall colors.
• Ginkgo is sometimes called the maidenhair tree. No tree can match the luminous yellow color of its fan-shaped leaves.
• Japanese maple is one of the most spectacular small trees you can grow in Georgia. It grows slowly but provides great fall color.
• Red maple produces bright red to yellow colors and often offers the greatest potential for fall colors in Georgia yards.
• Scarlet oak is usually the last tree in Georgia to develop its brilliant red fall color.
• Bald cypress is a deciduous conifer that has a brilliant orange red color.
• Black Tupelo often carries many different shades — yellow, orange, red, purple and scarlet — on the same branch.
• Sassafras has appeal for the leaves in different shapes as well as fall colors ranging from orange, scarlet, purple and yellow.
• Persimmon, not only do you get the fruit but the leaves turn anywhere from yellow to reddish purple.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact Brenda Jackson, the agricultural and natural resources agent for Murray County Extension, at (706) 695-3031 or bljack@uga.edu.