This article was adapted from its original version for use on the web. The brighter the sun, the more anthocyanin and the more brilliant the color. Red hues, caused by anthocyanins, develop in fall when sunlight is bright and phosphate moves from leaves into roots.Yellow and orange carotenoid colors emerge as the green chlorophyll fades and no longer masks them. Best color occurs during autumn when the shortening days are bright, sunny, and cool, nights are cool but not below freezing and when the trees are healthy and not stressed by drought or pests.The genetics of the plant play a major role in timing and color intensity, but so do weather and various other environmental factors. For best fruit, buy a variety such as ‘Woolbright’. Fall color is yellow green in the North, yellow to reddish purple in the South. AMERICAN PERSIMMON ( Diospyros virginiana)įemale trees produce edible fruits, though smaller and less tasty than Asian persimmons. Make the planting hole at least three times as wide as the original root ball and no deeper. Choose only nursery-grown plants sold in containers or balled and burlapped. Plant in fall where winters are mild (Zones 7 to 9) or in spring once soil can be worked. There are native trees for most any type of soil, but most do best in soil that is well-drained. Dogwood, apple serviceberry, sassafras, vine maple and Franklin tree like some shade. Maple trees and aspen turn into deep shades of red and orange. Many of the larger trees require full sun. The dissolving evergreen in their leaves results in the spectacular colors we see as ruska. Most grow well into Zone 8 and a few into Zone 9. Several of the species are very hardy, dominating the boreal and frigid Zones 1 through 4. These are not fragile exotics or prima donnas. Among them, they have blanketed much of the eastern half of the continent for thousands of years, and they adapt well to most gardens. The native American trees shown here are flat-out gorgeous in fall-several in other seasons, too. Closing the season with a bang, gray-black branches snake through clouds of yellow and burnt orange leaves in a fall scene that is a familiar herald of the coming winter and entirely miraculous.
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