By Bill Ward
Published in The Boerne Star on September 26, 2003
When some folks first move to the Hill Country from more northerly latitudes, they are given to muttering about no change of seasons, no fall color, summer all year, and so on. After one winter of not shoveling snow out of their driveways, those complainers seem to fall silent. These same people soon began to appreciate that we do have definite changes of seasons, even if summer seems to be the longest season most years.
Just because our live oaks, Ashe juniper, evergreen sumac, and silktassel keep our countryside green even during the coldest months, is no sign we don’t have winter. I, for one, am happy doing without the long periods of bleak gray-brown winter landscapes common to many places north of us. What’s wrong with short, relatively green winters?
Fall usually is much too short in the Hill Country, but there is a period when we do enjoy cooler temperatures and colorful foliage, no matter how fleeting it is. The most reliable and widespread native plant for striking fall colors in the Hill Country is the prairie flameleaf sumac (Rhus lanceolata). This is the October plant of the month recommended for landscaping by Operation NICE! (Natives Instead of Common Exotics!).
Flameleaf sumac grows as small trees and shrubs from Oklahoma and north-central Texas, down the eastern edge of the Hill Country, westward to Trans-Pecos Texas and New Mexico, and southward into Mexico. The plant is both soil-tolerant and drought-tolerant. We found it easy to grow in natural, unimproved soil derived from the Glen Rose limestone. Despite this poor soil, our flameleaf sumacs were quick to catch hold. After the initial few months of occasional irrigation, the plants have depended solely on rainfall for their water.
This deciduous sumac has numerous thin branches and compound leaves with 9-21 pairs of elongate, lance-shaped leaflets. During late summer they put on small white flowers, which produce clusters of red berries by early fall. Leaves turn red, purple, and orange during late fall and early winter. This is when the generally unnoticed clumps of sumacs in fence rows along roads and highways are suddenly the pride of the Hill Country.
Berries of the flameleaf sumac are eaten by small mammals as well as quail and other birds. The berries crushed in water are said to make a refreshing drink called “sumac-ade.” This surprises some people, because they think of sumacs as being poisonous like their cousin poison ivy. This is no worry in the Hill Country. In Texas the poison sumac grows only in the piney woods of East Texas.
A potential problem with cultivating flameleaf sumac is that some plants tend to send out suckers so that unwanted plants sprout up. In some places deer browse the limbs and leaves. Even if not browsed, it is necessary to protect the plants in deer-infested areas, because bucks find flameleaf sumac trunks а very desirable diameter for rubbing.
The Boerne Chapter of the Native Plant Society of Texas provides free planting and care instructions for flameleaf sumac at the nurseries participating in Operation NICE!: Barkley’s Nursery Center, Boerne in Bloom Garden Center, Fair Oaks Nursery, Hill Country African Violets and Nursery, Maldonado Landscape and Nursery, and Where Wild Things Grow Native-Plant Nursery.
Hill Country native trees and shrubs that turn bright yellow or golden-yellow in the fall include escarpment black cherry (Prunus serotium var. eximia), cedar elm (Ulmus crassifolia), sycamore-leaf snowbells (Styrax platanifolia), spice bush (Lindera benzoin), smoke tree (Cotinus obovatus), and witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana). Spectacular stands of goldenyellow escarpment black cherries can be seen in late fall along upper Cibolo Creek northwest of Boerne.
Spanish oak or red oak (Quercus buckleyi) produces red, yellow, and orange color in the hills all around Boerne, especially after the first light frosts. The most famous of all for its fall foliage, bigtooth maple (Acer grandidentatum), grows in canyons of the Tapatio Springs area just on the western edge of Boerne.
