The fall color may be winding down across the northern hemisphere but I still haven’t showed you what autumn foliage we’ve seen around here in Southern Middle Tennessee. I hope you will forgive my lateness at my own entry for the Fall Color Project. I’ve taken tons of pictures of our fall colors and have selected a few that are characteristic of what we’ve seen over the last couple weeks. If you are looking for maples check out my Plant Maples For Fall Color Post I wrote earlier in the week.
The sassafras trees were one of the first trees to begin changing for the fall. Their leaves are very interesting, not only for the fall color but for the shapes of the leaf lobes. With sassafras trees the lobes can be one two or three lobed with colors ranged form yellows to reds. It’s all over our slope and many folks may not want it in their gardens but it does provide some very nice fall colors!
Also appearing on our slope are the blackberries. I make a special point to leave as many blackberry bushes along the slope pathways as I can. Hopefully next year we’ll have quite a few to pick. The edges of the blackberry leaves seem almost a metallic bronze color.
When we start to look at more trees we can see a very old and large tree. It put on a massive display of golden colored leaves this year, better than I’ve ever seen it before.
The dogwood trees changed color just after the sassafras but have kept their color much longer. These are natural dogwoods that have been here awhile and were not planted by any person. The lie along a fence row. I heard a person say in my Master Gardener class once “If you want to plant a tree line put up a fence!” Around here the mockingbirds do much of the planting. Honestly I could do without their help! They seem to like planting too much pokeweed.
And here’s a closing shot of more of the golden maples in our backyard. They are most likely silver maples and junk trees but during the fall the are pure gold.
Lovely, Dave. That is funny about the old saying about planting a tree line by building a fence. So true! Our wild blackberries are awful tasting, nothing but seeds, no sweet goodness to suck out even. We are pulling all the wildlings out now, after tasting them. Hope yours are better. The dogwoods are the first to turn here and have finally dropped the leaves, it was a long show. Love your yellows, junk trees or no. 🙂
Frances
Can't beat those dogwoods for color. The red looks great with the gold of the maples.
I'm so jealous of your sassafras, Dave! We'd love to have some here. And hey, don't diss pokeweeds! They're ornamental all year and turn a stunning red in fall, a great contrast to the showy sprays of purple-black berries.
You have great fall color. I love the Dogwoods for the red leaves in fall. The blue sky and sun behind the trees makes them even nicer to look at.
Frances,
I'm afraid you might be right on the blackberries but I still have hope for some nice juicy ones. I may have to bite the bullet and get some cultivated varieties.
Tina,
The dogwoods are great for fall color. I just wish they had more berries this year.
OFB,
Pokeberries are nice enough in the wild, but coming up in the garden six times a day is a little crazy! Our mockingbirds are prolific planters!
Thanks Catherine!
The dogwoods are great trees I just wish we had a couple more in the yard.