October is a month of color. Tree leaves change colors and begin to fall. Summer annuals get changed out for fall and winter color. All around the yard and garden the colors are changing with some plants going into dormancy for the winter and others waking up putting on new growth.

As the days get shorter, deciduous trees and shrubs prepare to go dormant for the cooler months of the year. They do this by shutting down chlorophyll factories in the leaves and storing some of those valuable nutrients. As the green in the chlorophyll is removed from the leaves other pigments that have been there all along, hidden deep within the cells of the leaves are revealed. Some leaves turn yellow, others red, or orange, but those colors are quickly replaced by brown leaves that drop to the ground.

Different plants have different colors in their leaves. Here on the coast, the colors are often muted or they are spread out over such a long time period that we don’t notice them as much as they do in the mountains and foothills of the state. It may also be that we have so many evergreen trees and shrubs that the colors don’t stand out as much as they do where most of the trees and shrubs are deciduous.

One of my favorites to watch is the sweetgum tree (Liquidambar styraciflua). These native trees, while often hated for the hard, round fruit that fall from the plant, have beautiful fall color ranging from yellows and oranges to deep reds that may appear purple or even black in some cases. These star-shaped leaves that appear in such a wide variety of colors have fascinated me since I arrived in North Carolina. Where I grew up the colors were yellow, red, or orange, but never such a deep color as is found on the sweetgum tree.

What tree has your favorite colors in the fall?