LATE-AUTUMN LEAVES

     Several woody-stemmed plants, including native red maple trees, and alien Norway maple, Japanese red maple, weeping cherry and Bradford pear trees, and alien barberry bushes and burning bushes are commonly planted on lawns in southeastern Pennsylvania, as elsewhere.  These deciduous trees and shrubs on lawns have striking, colored leaves in mid-November, which is later than on wild trees and shrubbery, prolonging the autumn beauties of those lawns, including ours at home.     

     Red maples are covered with red leaves in the middle of November.  That brilliant foliage lights up the area where those trees stand, and helps lift spirits on gray days.   

     Norway maples have yellow foliage that also brighten lawns.  And these yard trees can become large, and riddled with cavities that gray squirrels, raccoons, chickadees, barred and screech owls, and other creatures live and raise young in.  

     In November, Japanese red maples, which are small and have gnarled limbs, have brilliant red and bronze foliage, one color to a leaf.  Those colored leaves are even more striking when sunlight shines through them, and lightens the area where those trees stand.

     Weeping cherries, which have slender, flexible twigs drooping to the ground, have yellow leaves in mid-November.  Some of these trees are shaped like open umbrellas, and people can stand under them to avoid sunlight or rain.

     Bradford pears have innumerable white flowers in April, which is the main reason this species is widely planted.  A berry-sized, brown fruit grows where each bloom was.  American robins, cedar waxwings, starlings and other kinds of berry-eating birds ingest many of those small fruits during autumn and winter, adding their feathered beauties to that of the trees.  

     And its those birds that spread Bradford pears across the countryside.  They eat the fruits, digest their pulp, but pass the seeds in their droppings as they fly about the countryside.  Some of those seeds, not eaten by mice, sprout into new seedling trees the next spring, many of them forming little, feral patches of themselves along some expressways and in certain abandoned fields and meadows.   

     But I think Bradford pears' colored leaves in November are their greatest beauties.  Each tree has some purple, red and yellow foliage that makes an attractive combination of colors in several human-made habitats.        

     Barberry bushes and burning bushes are commonly planted on lawns for their foliage beauties.  Barberries have thorny twigs, and small leaves that turn a lovely red or yellow in November, adding more bright colors to lawns.  This type of bush, with its protective spines and densely-packed leaves, also offers nesting sites to small birds in spring and summer.  

     Burning bushes have red foliage in November, making them stand out on lawns.  Barberries and burning bushes have red berries that are pretty and feed berry-eating birds.  Those birds spread the seeds around in their droppings, which is why I see many pretty bushes of these two species growing wild and beautiful in sunny woodland edges.  

     All these woody plants have attractive foliage in November, making lawns quite appealing.  And these plants prolong fall, and its lovely colored foliage right at home.