Sarina Dellinger: Creating fall color in the home garden – Salisbury Post

Sarina Dellinger: Generating slide color in the dwelling yard

Revealed 12:00 am Saturday, September 17, 2022

By Sarina Dellinger
For the Salisbury Put up

We obtain loads of thoughts this time of yr that seems like this: “When is the fall color peaking at Hurley Park?” When that normally variations yr to year, early November is a very good bet on when the fall shade will be its very best. Oftentimes an city backyard is far too smaller to increase many of the greater, showstopper trees like oaks, hickories and ashes. But there are lots of scaled-down trees, shrubs and perennials that will do the trick. Let us chat about how you can generate heat yellows, oranges, and reds in your possess property, especially considering that drop is a great time to include new plants to the landscape.

One particular shrub that supplies year-spherical fascination, particularly in the slide and wintertime is the pink twig dogwood (cornus sericea). As the identify implies, it has red twigs, together with orange/crimson leaves that fade to purple ahead of slipping off. It is also a fantastic host plant for butterflies and delivers food for bees and birds. It does properly in lots of areas but enjoys moist soil so if you have an difficulty with that in your garden this would be a great selection to plant. One more shrub that delivers similar gains and likes identical conditions is the Virginia sweetspire (itea virginica). The raceme bouquets in the summer time are fragrant and the leaves alter from pink to purple in the slide and are likely to hold on well into the wintertime. Examine this plant out in Priscilla’s Fragrance Backyard future time you go to Hurley Park. The very last of my prime three shrubs for slide colour is the oakleaf hydrangea (hydrangea quercifolia). Each and every year, I eagerly await the turning of the specimen at the entrance to the James B. Gascoigne Fern Glade. Its big oak-formed leaves change the most beautiful shades of deep burgundy to purple whilst graced with the existence of the dried flower panicles. These leaves will cling on into the wintertime. After they slide the exfoliating cinnamon bark down below the leaves can be relished in the winter yard. There are quite a few cultivars out there of the oakleaf hydrangea so there is positive to be a person to fit any yard room.

For the perennial lover, contemplate the Arkansas amsonia (amsonia hubrichtii) which turns a attractive golden yellow in the fall. This easy-increasing, deer-resistant plant also produces spring bouquets which the butterflies love. View it at Hurley Park in the Fuller Perennial Backyard garden or in the Ellen Ramsay Wilson Yard. There are also quite a few kinds of native goldenrod (solidago spp.) on the market. My most loved is the “fireworks” variety. It is also positioned in the Fuller Perennial Garden and welcomes slide with hundreds of smaller yellow flowers that give food items for foraging bees ahead of winter. It’s not as intense of a spreader as other folks and will mix properly with other perennials. An up-and-coming indigenous plant, very little bluestem (schizachyrium scoparium), places on a great fall display as well. The leaves transform yellow-orange even though the seed heads are bronzed purple. This plant is a larval host for butterflies and moths, and also delivers calendar year-round habitat for wildlife. A human advantage from this plant is that it prefers complete sunlight, tolerates clay and does not head droughts, when founded. There are many cultivars on the industry and it is commonly an simple indigenous clumping grass to obtain regionally.

There are lots of extra crops that will give you small-scale tumble coloration, but these are a couple of of my favorites. Take into account attending 1 of our month to month backyard garden tours for more data. We are hosting excursions each individual next Tuesday of the month at 10 a.m. The October backyard garden tour will be on Tuesday, Oct. 11. And lastly, the next time you take a look at Hurley Park verify out the gardens for inspiration on what to increase to your possess landscape.

If you have issues about Hurley Park, or want to know how to e-book events, remember to give us a connect with at 704-638-5298. Remain up to day with what is taking place at Hurley Park by next us on Fb or Instagram @HurleyParkNC. To look at a map or donate to Hurley Park, pay a visit to our site at salisburync.gov/hurleypark. Joyful gardening!

Sarina Dellinger is community yard manager for Salisbury Parks and Recreation.