Pumpkin Spice & Everything Nice for Autumn Time

11 Fantastic Colorado Fall Color Trees and Shrubs for Your Landscape Design

Summer 2020 has been nothing but eventful, but now that it’s almost October, it is now a thing of the past! Pack away those up those flip flops and sun dresses, and breakout the scarves and pumpkin spice everything because…Fall is here! It’s that time of year where Colorado mountains begin to flourish with tones of yellow, orange and red as a chill begins to arise in our morning air, and also the time where it becomes acceptable to have everything pumpkin spice flavored without judgement. Who doesn’t love a little PSL obsession?!

But aside from those environmental changes and acceptable habits for coffee flavors, Autumn in Colorado is the perfect escape for photographers and landscapers alike. Autumn means rich warm-toned landscapes, orange and red leaves changing, dramatic silhouettes at sunset, morning fog, and stunning reflections throughout the state. No wonder so many people are flocking to live here in Colorado Springs. But how do you get that Fall Color look for your own home? Our landscaping experts here at Bella Giardino Landscape and Garden Design have curated a list of the perfect Fall color plants to add to your landscape to get these stunning glimpses each year. Below are precisely those Autumn colored plants or Fall foliage you can add to your yard today to feel more of the Pumpkin Spice season coming on!

Great Fall Color Plants for Your Landscape

Try these underused but worthwhile trees and shrubs for an autumn landscape pop every year during this time!

Aspen Trees

Native to the state of Colorado, these trees are very self-sufficient when it comes to watering. Plus, they automatically change their leaf colors right around September/October so they are the perfect hands off addition to your yard.

Bigtooth or Wasatch Maple

Another Colorado-native, medium-sized tree with bold orange-to-red fall color as well. Similar to Aspens, these trees are well adapted to our diverse climate, soils, elevations and temperatures.

“Miss Kim” Lilac

Medium-large lilac bush with low to moderate water needs. This hardy, late-blooming lilac with dark green foliage and stellar burgundy fall colors also has a stunning Springtime pale-blue, fragrant flowers as well.

Serviceberry Bush

A great foothills shrub with upright to spreading branches, small, rounded leaves and clusters of small white flowers. It’s blue-black fruit attractive to wildlife for an added bonus on top of the mellow pale-golden to red fall color change.

New Mexico Privet

Stellar choice for xeriscaping and an extremely drought-tolerant plant. These are a large shrub to small tree with a dense, grayish-green foliage, yellow flowers before it’s leaves, blue-black fruit on some, and buttery yellow fall leaf color!

Western Chokecherry

This hardy, irregular branching shrub has shiny dark green leaves that complete a typical Fall cycle of yellow to orange to red every year. It also has elongated flower clusters with suckers to form thickets, in addition to their beautiful dark purple fruit for that diverse fall color.

Smooth Sumac

Another drought-hardy shrub with bright green leaves and pyramidal clusters of yellow flowers that produce fuzzy dark red fruits in fall and into winter. This plant is another outstanding red fall color characteristic too.

Three-Leaved Sumac, or “Skunkbrush”

This strong shrub with arching branches and glossy green three-parted leaves contains  small pretty yellow flowers before it’s leaves and natural reddish hairy edible fruits that alter into our beloved Autumn colors.

Golden Currant Shrub

Tolerant across a wide variety of conditions, this plant has some pretty cool yellow clove-scented flowers in late spring, but then change to orange and then deep red in the Fall. These also have yellow to black fruit as well, that attracts an even more colorful array of birds to your yard.

“Red-Twig” / “Red-Osier” Dogwood

This native medium-sized tree is adaptable to both plains and montane environments. It has a gorgeous red stem in winter, flat, white flower clusters followed by white to blue fruits attractive in the Spring, and yellow to red fall color leaves to complete the look.

Pumpkin Vines

These perfect Autumn-themed plants not only grow like crazy, they produce the beautiful orange pumpkin fruit that are the typical Fall objects used for decorations, Halloween activities and the source all thing PSL.

Contact Bella Giardino Landscape & Garden Designs today for more pumpkin spice and Fall additions to your Colorado Springs landscape. Contact our experts today!