Choose plants for fall color

By Ted Schaaf
Gardens on Spring Creek

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It's time to plan for fall color. Not only will the nurseries be offering great savings on woody plants, but also local landscapes are about to burst into spectacular fall color. Be sure to grab pen and paper and head over to the Gardens on Spring Creek where we have an excellent plant palate of many colorful options.

Trees, shrubs, grasses and perennials are all excellent candidates for bringing the beauty of fall into a home landscape. Although Colorado doesn't have sugar maples that turn burnt-orange in fall, there are many plants that can match their beauty and offer the same brilliant reds and oranges.

Trees are the main anchor of our landscapes and deserve to take center stage. A great native maple that can give the same stunning red coloring of the sugar maple is our Big Tooth Maple.

Although this tree is most often seen as a multi-stemmed tree, it is also available as a standard. The added benefit is that it can be grown in dry locations.

Marshal Seedless Ash is a tree that rivals the brilliant golden color of our aspens. They perform well along the Front Range. Give them room to spread. They are an impressive shade tree used often in our landscapes and along street medians.

Oak trees are by far the grandest of all trees. Red Oak trees give a final flash of red color at the end of the season. Their acorns are an added bonus as they provide food for our urban squirrels. Red Oak trees take up considerable space, so be sure to give them plenty of room to spread.

If trees are the anchors of the landscape, then shrubs are the backbone. A great native shrub, regarded as one of our best for fall color, is the Western Sand Cherry. Its glossy green foliage turns a brilliant red in fall. I like the new cultivar 'Pawnee Butte.' This shrub will require moderate watering to be at its best.

For those longing for the color orange in the landscape, you can't beat the Cut-Leaf Sumac for its outstanding fall display. This is a large shrub that spreads by sending out runners. This shrub is a great choice for naturalizing hillsides and is very drought tolerant.

One of my favorites is our native Service Berry. We have several fine selections here at the gardens. This is a large full-season shrub with flowers in the spring, enticing fruit for birds, and shades of red and orange foliage to close out the season.

Perennials and grasses are the carpet in the landscape. One of the best ground covers is our native Sulfur Flower. Late spring will find this ground cover exploding with yellow flowers on our parking medians at the gardens. Fall brings about another wonderful display of red foliage.

Sedum Angelica is one of my favorites for fall color. Angelica turns a bright orange as cold weather sets in. Foliage remains attractive throughout the entire winter.

The star of our native grasses is our own Little Blue Stem. Plant Select chose the variety 'Blaze' for its brilliant fall color that remains attractive throughout the winter. Seed heads sparkle when backlit by sunlight.

A taller accent grass having great fall color is the Switch Grass called 'Shenandoah'. This grass is a real show stopper with its bronzy leaf blades and matching seed heads. Enjoy the splendor of this wonderful season.

Happy gardening!

Ted Schaaf is the horticulturist for the city's Gardens on Spring Creek, located off Centre Avenue about one-half mile south of Prospect Road in Fort Collins.