Autumn leaves and black gold
Debbie Teashon
Stachyurus praecox fall leaves.
The spring leaves of Acer palmatum 'Twomblys Red Sentinel' is a as brilliant as the fall leaves.
Acer palmatum dissectum 'Tamukeyama'
As the weather cools down, I can't help but think about piles of autumn leaves and children jumping into the middle of them squealing with delight. It is a classic tale of joy — the little ones are tossing leaves everywhere until the piles are scattered, as if the trees had just dropped them.
Meanwhile, Dad and Mom are slouching in their chairs in happy exhaustion after a vigorous morning workout raking leaves, oblivious to the shenanigans going on outside.
Autumn is coming and so are the rich fall colors beginning to display on many of our favorite trees. There is nothing more remarkable than tree or shrub leaves dressed to the nines in rich fall color. The season is about showing off the jewel hues, in foliage and flowers.
I love Autumn. It is the easiest season to extend the garden show. I love picking up the leaves and pressing them into my garden books to discover later when I open the book.
Trees with fine fall foliage are a necessary ingredient for a spectacular fall garden. Best time to select your trees is in the fall, not only for viewing its fall finery, but also because it is the best time to plant, giving them a winter to settle in their roots before they need to put energy into the leaves and new growth.
A top rated tree and one of my favorites for its fall color, Japanese Stewartia (Stewartia psuedocamellia) is a fine tree with camellia-like spring flowers and great bark color for four seasons of interest.
Spike tail (Stachyurus praecox) is a shrub that gives two seasons of interest, first in autumn with its red to burgundy fall hues.
Later, dramatic racemes of pendulous blossoms flower on long, red stems. The plant gives an impressive floral display for the winter garden, especially with a dark evergreen background behind it. This is sometimes thought of as a collector’s plant; however, I’ve seen it offered often in nursery mail order catalogs.
Of course, many maples are the jewels of the fall garden. Maples are a staple for fall in the Northwest, as rhododendrons are for spring. We are lucky. Many maples we grow here are difficult to grow in other parts of the country. If you look around our typical neighborhoods, maples and rhododendrons are the most often grown plants, if you exclude the lawn.
No matter what color the season brings, the leaves are a valuable resource for the garden. If you are blessed with deciduous trees on your property, the partially decayed leaves, called leaf mold, make a humus rich, very fertile mulch for our gardens. Adding this to the garden is a beneficial way to recycle leaves and build humus rich soil. The easiest way to make leaf mold is let nature take its natural course. Let the leaves rot where they fall.
In gardens where this is not practical, gather the leaves and bag them up into large black plastic garbage bags. Throw a shovelful of dirt or compost in the bag with the leaves. Poke a few holes on the top and bottom of the bag for air circulation and drainage and let it sit out over winter.
The following spring, the volume of leaves is about half of what you started with. In its place is a bag of black gold — a crumbly leaf mold with a delightful earthy scent ready to go into the garden as mulch. If you don’t want to use plastic bags gather the leaves, throw a few shovelfuls of soil on top and cover with an old holey tarp. Weight the edges down with stones or old bricks, so it won’t blow away during our rainy season windstorms.
To further speed up the process of decay, mowing the leaves with a lawn mower, before bagging them, shreds the material and accelerates the decaying process. This is essential for oak and arbutus leaves that are naturally slow to break down.
If you don't have trees that give you enough leaves to bag, ask your neighbors for any leaves they are bagging up to recycle. Instead, recycle them into your garden. You have the Midas touch when you turn your leaves into black gold.
Enkianthus campanulatus 'Red Bells' shrub with fall color and interesting seed heads.
Leaves floating in a water bowl.
Gardening for the Homebrewer: Grow and Process Plants for Making Beer, Wine, Gruit, Cider, Perry, and More
By co-authors Debbie Teashon (Rainy Side Gardeners) and Wendy Tweton
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