By Bill Ward
Published in The Boerne Star on December 8, 2006
Before last week’s frigid gale stripped off most of the leaves, our yard was the prettiest it has ever been during late fall. Every tree and bush that produces autumn color seemed to be working together to coordinate the timing of the color change.
Even our usual early bird, the flame-leaf sumac, waited to join all the others in putting on the bright foliage of fall.
In our yard we had two categories of leaf color- reddish and yellowish. The reddish trees and shrubs were red oak, bigtooth maple, flame-leaf sumac and soapberry. The yellowish group included cedar elm, black cherry, Mexican buckeye, spicebush, witch hazel, Carolina buckthorn, and smoke tree.
The old standby for spectacular autumn leaves in the Hill Country is Texas red oak or Spanish oak (Quercus buckleyi). We are lucky to have a couple of them growing wild on our lot, and the hill behind our house has several large ones.
During late fall, these oaks transform that hillside into a patchwork of bright red and orange spots among the evergreen of liveoaks and junipers.
During the last several years we have planted five bigtooth maples (Acer grandidentatum). At present they range from 4 to 15 feet high, but even the smaller ones made a good show this fall.
When you buy a maple at a nursery, you have no way of knowing what colors the leaves will be in your yard the next November. We’ve been lucky, because all of ours have nice fall color, mostly golden-orange with some red. This was a good year for maple color.
Another plant with bright red and orange foliage in our yard was flame-leaf sumac (Rhus lanceolata). That small tree seems to have been spectacular all over this part of the Hill Country this fall.
Some friends who were highly impressed by its color asked me why flame-leaf sumac was not our NICE! Plant of the Month (POM). As I recall, it has been a POM in past years, and maybe it should be again next fall.
It’s easy to grow and drought tolerant, and it always has bright fall leaves.
Our soapberry (Sapindusare saponaria var. drummondi) was almost as spectacular as the flame-leaf sumacs. Soapberry colors this fall have inspired me to plant more of these small trees soon. Incidentally, soapberry would be a good POM for Operation NICE!. Not only is the fall foliage attractive, it is disease-resistant, drought-tolerant, and grows in poor soil.
Our neighborhood is full of large cedar elms (Ulmus crassifolia), and for a couple of weeks last month many yards had a yellow glow. The ones in back of our house turned lemon yellow and then golden.
My favorite Hill Country tree that turns bright yellow in November is black cherry (Prunus serotina). One sunny day several falls ago I was surprised to see that a whole wooded hillside northwest of Boerne had turned brilliant yellow. It was a north-facing limestone slope full of black cherry trees. That scene almost rivaled the aspen groves of the Rockies.
Some of our native understory shrubs also turned various shades of bright yellow. These Mexican buckeye (Ungnadia speciosa), spicebush (Lindera benzoin), and witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana). The spicebush particularly stood out, its lemon-yellow foliage almost glowing.
Even today, fall colors are lingering in our backyard. The large leaves of both a Carolina buckthorn (Frangula caroliniana) and a smoke tree (Cotinus obovatus) are turning yellow and gold with patches of red-orange.
With the early-fall blooms and the late-fall leaf color, fall may be the prettiest time of year in the Boerne area. Fall of 2006 was one of the best.
