I am writing on a chilly day, with gray cloudscapes pierced by wedges of intense blue, predicting winter in the offing. Autumn is when we derive a lot of pleasure from our trees. The turning of leaves helps to single out favorite trees and to celebrate a last outdoor hurrah.
And who does not want a fabulous last hurrah in one’s own garden? The two Japanese maple and one kousa dogwood seedlings — tiny things — I planted in the early ’80s next to the house are fall color standbys. They provide screening and a variety of pleasures over the garden year, and explode at its very end, assisted by a Viburnum carlesii, into a grand finale of scarlets and crimsons.
Nurseries and garden centers appreciate having markets for a wider variety of plants; There is much more to choose from than the standbys. None of the three trees in the photo is a fall color cliché, yet they are bright and beautiful. Their layout is quite compact, just over 40 feet apart, the amount of space many lots accommodate easily, and with plenty of space for underplanting with selected shrubs, grasses, groundcovers, or perennials.
The witch hazel is Hamamelis mollis, the Chinese witch hazel: sweetly scented yellow flowers in late winter, and plantsman Michael Dirr notes the color can vary from yellow to “spectacular yellow-orange” in fall. The spreading shrub to small tree, 10 to 15 feet high and wide, is slow-growing and accommodates a mixed planting of shrubbery and perennials around its base. Plant H. mollis in “moist, acid, well-drained organic soils; full sun or partial shade,” Dirr instructs.
The lindera is slightly more exotic: Lindera erythrocarpa. The lindera family is quite large, some 80 species, one of which, L. benzoin, is native to moist Island woodlands. As the photo shows, L. erythrocarpa has outstanding yellow fall color. The flowers appear in early spring, followed by red fruits, and it tolerates dry sites better than the native Martha’s Vineyard lindera.
Oxydendrum arboreum is a beautiful tree for full sun or partial shade, and is a native North American plant with a generally slow rate of growth. The upright habit to about 30 to 40 feet, becoming pyramidal with drooping branches, makes it of a size suitable to fit into a garden with other plantings. In summer, oxydendrum bears panicles of white flowers similar to those of a blueberry or huckleberry, not surprising since these plants all belong to the Ericaceae, and like blueberry and huckleberry, oxydendrum becomes flaming red in fall.
Being a longtime observer of trees, I feel miserable when I notice the sad state of street and shade trees in Vineyard Haven. Driving into town or coming in on the boat, the town spread before one looks barren and dreary, similar to an industrial site. Specimen trees are sparse, many existing trees show signs of dieback or other insult, and a “forest” of utility poles and wires is highly visible instead.
This is not to attack Tisbury’s town management. As a hub and port of entry, the town receives a heavy, unavoidable dose of vehicular traffic and congestion, with corresponding exhaust emissions. Trees pay the price, while the rest of the Island makes use of Tisbury.
However, we are a tourist destination. We need more shade and the graciousness that characterizes leafy New England towns. Sturdy, quality street tree species with proven pollution tolerance exist.
If it were up to me, I would request funds from the Community Preservation Act to put comprehensive street-tree planting programs in place, in both port towns of Tisbury and Oak Bluffs. I wouldn’t mind getting those utilities out of sight and underground, either.
Looking at viburnums
I recently went to a friend’s summer house to take a look at viburnums that had been planted years back in a shrub border. Viburnums constitute the underpinning of much native Vineyard woodland, and at this season provide deep color and fruit. The V. dentatum, V. setigerum and V. sieboldii were handsome, the latter stripped of fruit already, only the pedicels remaining. A valuable resource to study this genus and to learn more about its extent and landscape possibilities is Dirr’s comprehensive “Viburnums: Flowering Shrubs for Every Season” (Timber Press, 2007).
Gardens: The Piet Oudolf way
A debate is taking place over the heads of plants in perennial gardens. Longtime convention tells us to “put the garden to bed” in fall by cutting back and cleaning up plant debris and leaf accumulations, a sort of germ-theory style of garden maintenance. Then, depending upon what sort of plants the beds housed, a layer of protective mulch might be spread.
Leading garden designers have come around to conclusions startlingly different from longtime convention. We are now in the era of the New Perennial Gardens. The so-called New Perennials are plants that provide structure and form beyond what their flowers present, so that after bloom is passé, there is still something interesting to look at. Frequently cited examples are the seedheads of rudbeckias and sanguisorbas, and the remains of interesting grasses.
Instead of concern with color primarily, these gardens are designed to stand and perform attractively over a long season, not just while blooming. They promote wildlife and good water management.
Some that are well-known in the U.S., such as the High Line in Manhattan and the Lurie garden in Chicago, were designed or influenced by the Dutch garden designer Piet Oudolf, among others. Stemming from the pioneering American designs of James van Sweden and Wolfgang Oehme in the 1960s, much of it grasses-based but influenced by European horticultural thinking, many leading 21st century designers promote plantings that seek to replicate a greater state of nature in the garden.
Long story short: Leave those plants and seedheads standing until spring. Nothing terrible will happen to your garden.