Where to Get These 7 Trees and Shrubs with Great Fall Color

WOOSTER, Ohio — Want a more colorful yard in fall?

Paul Snyder, program assistant at Secrest Arboretum in Wooster, lists seven trees and shrubs — all available for purchase at the arboretum’s Saturday, Oct. 3, Autumn Discovery Day plant sale — whose changing fall foliage really shines:

• Blackgum, or black tupelo, and specifically the types called Wildfire and Tupelo Tower. Both blaze red come autumn.
• Hybrid witch hazel, whose fiery fall foliage is red, orange or yellow. “We’ll have three varieties in the sale — Diane, Primavera and Jelena,” Snyder said. “They’re great plants that everyone asks about, but very few garden centers sell them.”
• Fragrant abelia, a shrub whose leaves turn fiery, too — in shades of red, orange and yellow.
• Carolina allspice, also a shrub, whose leaves glow golden-yellow.
• Bald cypress, a deciduous conifer, whose needles — before they drop — turn copper.
• Golden larch, another deciduous conifer, whose needles become, yes, golden.
• Large fothergilla. “It’s my favorite shrub for fall color,” Snyder said. “The color lasts three weeks at least and is a mix of red, orange, yellow or purple.”

A complete list of the 80 different plant types in the sale is at go.osu.edu/2015AutumnDiscovery.

The arboretum is at the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center. The center is the research arm of the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences at The Ohio State University.

Admission to the sale is free and open to the public. Hours are 9 a.m. to noon. OARDC is at 1680 Madison Ave. in Wooster, but visitors should enter the campus off Secrest Road, which is just north of the Madison Avenue entrance, due to a construction detour. Detour signs are posted.

For more information, call 330-263-3761 or go to secrest.osu.edu.