Colorful ways to brighten up your autumn days

While on our trip to Ireland in October, the Central Coast was doused with welcome rain. Glad news! I had dreaded coming home from the Emerald Isle to brown hills and a shriveled garden. I was delighted to see that the first rain of the season had brought the “old girl,” Mother Nature, back to life. Water, being the key to all living things, soothes our bodies and minds. When “our cup is full” we are less stressed, kinder to ourselves and to others.

Against a green backdrop, fall colors are popping. Fall colors in Cambria are not considered stunning, but are quite lovely. With sunshine overhead, they lift the spirits and make us smile at the grand production.

If you yearn for fall colors, there are some simple solutions for planting now for the coming fall. You can add a few specimen plants for future autumns and transform your garden. Now’s the time to blast into scarlet, orange and yellows.

Want reds?

The old hotels in Ireland were readying themselves for winter by wrapping themselves in a cloak of scarlet. The leaves on these vines looked similar to “Boston Ivy,” common in the eastern states. A better solution for our dry climate is called Vitis californica, “Roger’s Red.” It was actually found to be a hybrid of the native vine and the non-native grape vine, providing striking fall color and grapes to feed the birds. If you don’t have space for this vine that grows to 30 feet, plant the more modest Vitis californica “Walker Ridge.” Not as dramatic in color, but you’ll be treated to yellow, orange, and red leaves in the autumn.

Japanese maples do well in Cambria, providing burgundy red year-round or in the fall, depending on the variety.

A shrub that grows well in clay soil and brings a rich red to your garden in the fall and winter is the redtwig dogwood shrub. Its leaves often take on fall color before dropping. The dogwood is good at stabilizing the soil in hilly areas but needs to be planted in crevices that will provide a bit of runoff.

How about orange?

An almost unimaginable fluorescent orange occurs in nature in the leaves of the Chinese pistache tree. A reliable tree that works well in garden beds. The common smoke tree, Cotinus “Grace,” has striking fall foliage with both orange and purple hues.

Orange flowers are a knock out on lion’s tail, Leonotis leonurus, a deer-resistant, drought-tolerant shrub that grows from 3 to 6 feet tall, showing off its orange flowers well into winter.

Crave sunny yellows?

If you desire a blast of yellow overhead in the fall, the Gingko tree, dating back 200 million years, is just the thing. In prehistoric times, it grew all over the planet. It is a slow grower but will eventually reach 50 feet.

A native purist should consider the lovely sycamore tree for some lovely fall color. A speedy grower, it will shoot to 75 feet. Plant it in an area you don’t wish to plant groundcover. The leaves and roots emit a chemical that is inhospitable.

This story was originally published November 16, 2016 at 9:47 AM with the headline "Colorful ways to brighten up your autumn days."