Red Fall Foliage - 2010

Euonymus alata has about the brightest and best hot pink color around. Much brighter than this picture gives it credit for. The plant itself is not all that exciting most of the year, but in the fall, it certainly outdoes most everything else.

Rhododendron (azalea) arborescens gradually turns from green to reddish copper. It is only just starting in this picture and would get much better in a week or so after I took its picture.

Spirea 'Gold Flame' has pretty good fall foliage most, but not every year. Most of the spireas here seem to do a pretty good job of fall color.

This is Cornus alba 'Ivory Halo'. It is a lovely shrub dogwood with green leaf centers and white margins. In the fall the white turns to pink and gives you what you see in this picture.

Cornus kousa is pretty much just a green tree after flowering in the spring. It is not a predictable fall colorer (is that a word?) but when it does color up, it gets a wonderful shade of red, almost overshadowing the Japanese maple next to which it is planted.

Acer griseum is mostly grown for its copper colored peeling bark. You can see a picture of that in the photo gallery on my website, but its fall color is a nice red, not quite as bright as Acer triflorum, but plenty nice enough.

This last one, Acer circinatum 'Oregon Fern' has to have the best and showiest fall color of anything. I know it doesn't seem to be able to decide just which color it wants to turn for fall, but no one misses it as they walk through the garden. It is not an easy tree to grow in this climate - none of the circinatums are - but we have it in a shady, rather sheltered place, and it has done well for over 10 years now.

I know I was going to post this last Friday, but I've been held hostage by Santa's elves who forced me to finish up all of my Christmas presents, and since the last animal was stuffed this morning, I am back - hopefully to be able to keep a more regular blogging schedule, at least until spring.

Jane