Trees and Shrubs for Autumn Color

Trees that do well in North Dakota don't often give us the wild mixture of colors that some locations achieve, but that doesn't mean that fall here is boring.  With a little creativity and a mixture of the right shrubs and trees, we can still achieve colorful autumns.

Amur Maple

One of my favorites for fall color is the Amur Maple (Acer ginnala).  The Amur maple can be grown either as a tall multi-stemmed shrub, or it can be pruned to grow as a small tree.  I love the full, rounded look of the shrub growth so I trim only enough to keep the bottom area around the shrub open.  They grow to about 20 feet tall and wide.  They are a handsome shrub in the spring and summer, but they really come into their own in the fall, when they show off brilliant oranges to bright reds and deep burgundies.  Amur maples are used in shelter belts and when they are in their full fall color, it almost looks like a wall of fire on the edges of the fields.

Another colorful family of shrubs are sumacs.  Rhus typhina are also known as the staghorn sumacs.  They grow from 15 to 20 feet tall, with lacy leaves and multiple, crooked branches that grow to resemble stags' horns.  The branches are even covered with "velvet" which make them look even more like stags' horns when the foliage has dropped.  Their fall color is a spectacular blend of yellow, orange and red, all on the same shrub.

Full size trees that do well in North Dakota generally have a yellow fall color.  Some are more golden brown (the poplar family) and others offer a brighter yellow (ash and silver maples).  At Wiese Acres, silver maples make a nice backdrop for the deep purple of ninebarks (Physocarpus), the scarlet reds of barberry (Berberis). 

It's a glorious end to a wonderful growing season!