That brugmansia sure did catch my attention. I may pull mine out and replace it with one like yours.
Beautiful photos. Thank you.
Renee

Your callicarpa is giving me zone envy.
Interesting that your 'Chocolate' is so green while mine is still very chocolaty. Must be a zone thing.

I always enjoy your photos.

Love that variegated brug and the abutilon megapotamicum, variety names, please?

hh, mine loses its purple when it goes into flower. yours doesn't?earlier in the season, the more sun, the more purple.
mindy

The brugs are beautiful!

Like the close-up of the "Chocolate" Joe Pye, but truthfully in the garden the flowers are very "eh" to me - I grow this one for the foliage coloration, and I find the white flowers just don't show well unless I'm right up on top of it. I was working around it yesterday, and I noticed the insects sure do love those flowers!

Mindy, mine is just starting to flower. Many years the flowers don't open fully before frost. Make that most years! As of Mon. it was still very dark. I've never seen it green. I grow it mainly for the foliage as well.

Beautiful.

Mindy,checked mine again this morning and the lower leaves are mostly green, with the center about half changed and still dark on the top. Usually we've had a killing frost by now and we had an early spring this year so this may be the most green I see on it.

hh, glad you get to enjoy them this yr!

mxk,funny, previous to this year, i felt that way as well- about the flowers.but i do think they make a good strong statement when in a bunch or mass. and there's SO LITTLE perennial flowering out there now(and nothing in the shade except them ,corydallis lutea, and autumn crocus) that i do appreciate them having established themselves far and wide!!
best,
mindy

I like 'Chocolate' eupatorium but agree that it is best en masse. I use it in the north alley where it puts on a great show in October. Another late season perennial I really like is 'White Pearl' bugbane which blooms here in early November. It's great to have some nice fresh blooms when we're out raking leaves and the rest of the garden is largely brown and in winter sleep mode.

All of your pictures are close-ups... What is putting on a show when seen from a distance?

Heptacodium is one of my favorite things - a September-flowering tree is invaluable in the garden! Especially this year when it was swarmed by migrating Monarch butterflies. But the pink calyx show, at least on my tree, is not really visible from a distance, so I don't really count it as a feature. Can you see the pink from a distance on yours?

Because many of the plants that provide leaf color in the fall in my garden are in some shade, they do not color well until after the ash tree loses its leaves. The ash is now starting to color up and drop some leaves so other things in the backyard should soon be putting on a bit of color.

What provides your best leaf color?

hi woody, it would be so helpful both to you and to all of us- if you add your location next to your zone, because otherwise, i can't relate to your info!! and monarchs on your heptacodium- oooooh, how cool; where ARE you??!(they're not around here boo hoo.)

'no macro views' because that would depress me/you! later, when the trees turn, then it's foliage glory here.(see the Trees and Autumn and other pages on our website)
Oh, there IS one macro view on the Autumn page- includes the red urn and the zebra grass- that shot looks like that now, here.

the heptacodium macro shot in the Early Oct. Glory album i linked to above(below each photo)- gives an idea of the salmon color from a distance.

when you say 'best leafcolor', are you asking trees or shrubs or perennials?

best,
mindy
www.cottonarboretum.com/

Here is a link that might be useful: Autumn page of The Cotton-Arbo retum website

I keep telling you... I don't like giving more detail on location - but I'm in southern Ontario near the lake.

I mostly meant tree and shrub foliage color, but perennials are good too... Solomon's Seal is my best perennial foliage color usually. Lots of nice tree foliage color in your linked site! And some nice 'longer' views - I find the close-ups more meanigful if you first get an idea of what the overall picture looks like.

It looks like your heptacodium produces more color in the calyx than mine does. Mine isn't really noticeable.

We are on the flyway for the Monarchs migrating. They gather around here while waiting for the winds to be right so that they can ride the thermals to cross Lake Ontario on their way to Mexico for the winter. We normally have lots of Monarchs in the fall but this year was extraordinary! I think the winds must have shifted a bit to the east of where they usualy are, bringing more Monarchs to our neighbourhood than usual. This is actually the first year we'd noticed them favoring the heptacodium. The bees love it - it practically vibrates with bees when it blooms. Pardon me for being rude and posting a picture on your thread, but this is one of the most amazing scenes we've seen in our garden:
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gee, woody, you're not at all rude; i'm so glad you posted these; aMAzing!!!we don't get butterflies here much, sigh. did you see those posts of the people(i don't know if it was the new eng forum or this one)who RAISE them to watch them hatch and then release them? totally mesmerizing.

now, i know this may seem 'pushy' to some, but i am still curious- If you can tell me in the course of a thread- that you are in southern ontario, why are you not comfie adding that very big area of southern ontario- next to your zone?

so now this is going to seem like a really stupid quaestion to many, but- does being 'lake-side' temper one's climate? we're in z. 5 but foliage hasn't peaked here yet; far from it. has your peaked? when we go up to burlington vt every fall- for foliage, burlington, which is on lake champlain, seems to be the last area in the state to go peak. but then again, i seem to remember people from chicago talking about how FREEZING it can get there because of the wind, so...i'm obviously confused.

best color here is the j. maples, the acer negundo winter lightning,euonymus elatus,amsonia hubrechtii for feathery gold; and i cannot remember what else. i'll try to remember to repost to this when the foliage turns here.

thanks again for those magical shots.it wouldn't surprise me at all if i learned that someone had chosen their location and bought their house- to be on the monarch(or other) flyway!btw, does that mean that you get to experience them twice a year?
best,
mindy

Telling general location in the occasional thread feels different to me than always giving that information on every thread I post to...

I didn't see the post on whatever forum about the raising of the butterflies. When the butterflies return, it doesn't seem to be the same sort of mass event. I haven't checked that tracking site, but I suspect the return flight takes place over a longer period of time whereas the fall migration is in a bit of a rush to avoid the frosts - just guessing... Our previous house was a bit west of this one. Several times there we saw the Monarchs leaving - there was a brown river crossing the sky! It seemed to happen early in the morning because we'd see them when we were heading out for the morning commute. I had hoped to see them leave this year but we missed it. One day the swarm had just disappeared from the garden but we never saw the exodus.

The lake has a big effect on the local climate. We get late, cold springs because the lake takes a long time to warm up and winds from a southerly direction in spring get cooled off by the cold water of the lake. On the other hand, we get long, warm falls because once the lake has warmed up in summer, it takes a long time to cool down again. The US side of the lake gets 'lake effect' snow in winter - cold, dry wind from the north picks up moisture as it crosses the lake and then dumps it all as snow when it reaches land on the south side. We only get 'lake effect' snow here if the wind is from the NE, coming down the St. Lawrence river and the eastern part of the lake.

I think fall color is most affected by day-length, sunshine, and temperatures so is only affected by the lake effect warm fall. The wamer fall delays the color somewhat. Color just started here this week and a lot of things are still not showing much color. Our average first frost date is October 29.

The other thing that has a noticeable effect at times on the local climate here is that we are in the 'rain shadow' of the Niagara escarpment. It can be pretty frustrating during dry spells in summer to watch on the weather radar as big rain clouds approach, only to see them form a neat line that follows the west side of the escarpment - and watch them dump all their rain there while we get not a drop!

Great photos Mindy and Woody! I love Heptacodium--the 2 of mine do color up spectacularly in the fall. I grow them in a lot of sun and the calyxes turn very red. Here are a couple photos from this morn:

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now Monique, that is just NOT fair!!! it looks like a darned sedum autimn joy tree. just aMAzing!! You know, Monique and Les, when they start testing plants for steroids, you guys are going to be in BIIIIG trouble.
!!!!!!!
wow that is inspiring.Please please please show us more when you can.
thnx much,
mindy

Monique - ditto what Mindy says... My heptacodium has never done anything like that in the fall - that is spectacular! You could make a small fortune propagating that I'll bet. If mine is the 'norm', that's got to be some sort of fabulous 'sport'/mutation.

'sport'? nah, woody, like i said, it's the steroids!
best,
mindy

I thought it was the sun exposure that turned the color more red. We have acid soil that was well fertilized by cows about 20 years ago lol. My 2 Heptacodium were purchased a few years apart and they are about the same color so I don't think they are anything but the regular species.

Woody, you are so lucky to have all the butterflies on yours--I had a ton a few years ago but haven't seen many on mine in the past couple of years and am disappointed about that.

Monique - I did some looking around on university sites (for reliable information) and I found this from the Arnold Arboreteum:

"The premier ornamental feature of Heptacodium
jasminoides is its fruits, which are
borne in clusters. What makes the fruits so
valuable from an ornamental point of view
is the fact that the calyces do not fall off
when flowering is over, but persist and (more
importantly) continue to grow. Individual
fruits develop slowly from the flowers; light
green at first, they ripen to the most glamorous
rose to purple. A large cluster of fruits,
each fruit with its "accrescent persistent
calyx," is more spectacular than the blossoms
at the peak of flowering, especially
when the cluster is held high and glows with
backlighting from the sun. The rich purple
color remains attractive for several weeks as
the fruits continue to ripen. At full maturity,
the fruits turn tan and slowly fall away."

The names Heptacodium miconioides and Heptacodium jasminoides appear to be used interchangeably...

So I wonder if the difference in my experience and yours, Monique, could be due to your warmer zone...? i.e. maybe you get fruit and here it's too cold/too early frost so the fuit - and the resulting color - doesn't have a chance to develop here. I haven't looked for fruit starting - will have to check on that... Also, our soil here is on the alkaline side; maybe that makes a difference too. The Arnold Arboretum article said best leaf color in the fall happens in part shade. Mine is in full sun (except the back is against a big white cedar on the north side) and mine just turns sort of yellow-brown in late fall.

Here is a link that might be useful: Arnold Arboretum atricle on heptacodium

That Seven Son is quite amazing. Mine is more of a faded pink like Mindys.

Mine is in full sun, about 12 hours during peak growing season.

I'll bet it's the length of the growing season that makes a lot of difference... I checked my heptacodium when I came back from walking the dogs late this afternoon. There are lots of berries on it but they are all green at this point. I'll keep an eye on what happens to them. I'm not optimistic that any color will develop because the tree was at least a week later to bloom this year than it usually is and we've already had frost - on the 13th-, which is earlier than normal.

well, i am conFUSED! i have never noticed fruit on my 2 hepta.micro. and this morton arboretum site entry talks nothing about fruit, just sepals(are sepals the same as calyces, you botany whizzes out there?)hmmmmm......
best,
mindy

Here is a link that might be useful: morton arboretum entry on heptacodium micro.

I haven't particularly looked for/noticed fruit in the past but perhaps that's because (a) I never knew I should look for it and/or (b) the flowers didn't get pollinated sufficently to produce much fruit perhaps. But it's definitely there this year! It's small, round green balls with fuzzy 'hats' on top. They're a bit smaller - at this point at least - than honeysuckle berries. And I notice that where there are pink caylxes, there is no fruit - i.e. it looks like the caylx only remains if the flower is not pollinated...? I'm still thinking that the reason I've never seen a showy fruit display is that the growing season here is not long enough to ripen the fruit. If the caylx disappears on pollinated flowers, the swarm of bees and butterflies were enough to minimize the display of color from caylxes, so combined with the fruit not rippening, I don't get a fall display. I can't get (or don't know how to get) a decent macro photo with my camera and DH's is not available until the weekend so this is the best I can do for pictures:

You can see in this one that there are only a few calyxes and all the green bits that form the elongated remains of the flower cluster are the individual fruits with their fuzzy 'hats':
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This heptacodium is behind and to the right of the iron arbour in this picture and you can see that there is only the faintest hint of pink. (Pardon the mess on the driveway - pots in midst of fall clean-up...)
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This picture from late last September will help you find the heptacodium in the previous picture...
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it appears that the flower's sepals, taken as a whole, are called a calyx.
best,
mindy

Here is a link that might be useful: explanation of sepals/calyx

This morning I was talking to a neighbour who is also a past-president of the Auxiliary (volunteers) at the Royal Botanical Gardens here. She said her heptacodiums in their backyard always produce the colorful fruit. I will probably be going over later today to see them (and hopefully get some pictures). Her garden is more sheltered than mine - things always bloom and mature earier for her than me - so that may make the difference. She says her trees are younger than mine and have always produced the ripe fruit, so age of the plant is not the reason. She also confirmed what I noticed - that where there is the pink caylx there is not fruit... I'm really curious to see this ripe fruit up close.

thnx woody, this will be interesting to learn about
mindy

Mindy - I'm afraid we're not a lot further ahead after visiting my neighbour's tree....! At this point, the color on hers is all from calyxes, although she says the berries, which are now green on hers, will darken in color to an intense purple. The calyxes on hers are smaller, much denser/many more of them than on mine and some of hers have berries under them. But the berries on mine are bigger and more plentiful. Her tree is in part shade and the Arnold Arboretum article did say the foliage color was best in part shade, so that might account for the difference in color of the calyxes between hers and mine. This is what the 'flower' cluster looks like on hers:
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I didn't take a picture of the overall tree because it is still quite small and she has limbed it up fairly high as a standard with a tall trunk, so there isn't a lot of top growth. Mine is also a standard but I allowed it to branch fairly low down because I wanted it to fill the space closer to the ground.

Monique - if you're still reading this thread, can you please tell us whether all the color in the pictures you posted comes from the calyxes or is some of it from ripe fruit? Also, are those trees in full sun or do they get some shade? How sheltered is the location? When do your trees bloom? Mine doesn't start blooming until the last week of September, which doesn't allow a lot of time for fruit development/rippening before hard frosts. Also, have you had and seedlings from the fruit produced? If it produces a lot of ripe fruit, I hope it doesn't become a problem self-seeder.

I will be watching my tree pretty closely to see what happens next - and I hope a hard freeze will come late this year! We've had light frost but nothing that has done much damage yet.

It seems likely to me that performance varies by zone/length of growing season, sun/shade conditions, and probably by inherent differences in plants. I don't think there are named varieties in the trade yet but it appears that there may be a basis to select varieties based on the fall color of the calyxes and, perhaps, fruit production and speed of rippening.

woody,isn't this interesting. let's hope monique (and george; where is george??)will weigh in on the berry issue.they are both in southern CT, z.6 i think.I think monique's 2 are both in full sun. mine are both in partial shade.

the one interesting fact i have to share about heptacodium comes from my talking with Peter del Tredici (genuflect, genuflect) the very admirable Arnold Arboretum plant explorer/tree poobah and THE man responsible for bringing heptacodium back from the wilds of china! The AA introduced this tree into the U.S. some 20 yrs ago,and as AA members, we rcvd a tiny tree the size of a drinking straw-which we planted and which grew phenomenally quickly.So when I saw Peter at a lecture a few yrs ago, i asked him if the tree was a weed in china(because it grows sooo quickly here). Much to my surprise, he said that the opposite is true. It is only found on one mountain( or one tiny area). What a surprise.
Anyway, it so cool to feel this close to a part of U.S. plant history!(yes, there are dozens of plants we can feel that way about, but this one just feels especially close to me!)
best,
mindy
www.cottonarboretum.com/

I took some closeups of my heptacodium and posted them below. I have plenty of calyxes consisting of 5 dark pink sepals each, but not much fruit. The fruit is green, the dark pink color is totally from the calyxes.
I agree that there is no fruit associated with the calyxes themselves--the fruit stands alone.

My bigger tree gets sun most of the day but there is a blue spruce beside it (too close) that might offer it a bit of protection. Both trees were blooming early in september and had finished by about the 3rd week. The smaller one that is in some shade turned pink first (about the last w/end of the month). The larger one was paler pink at that time and by the first w/end in October, both were very pink.

I've never seen any seedlings.

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i meant to mention the seedling issue as well. no hept. seedlings here either. ever. now that would be a nice perk, wouldn't it?

man, next time i buy a house (and spend 28 years building a garden) remind me to find one built on the richest farmland in the country....

sigh,
mindy

here's more info on its discovery, and pruning experiences(see notes at bottom of linked blog page).

http://plant-quest.blogspot.com/2006/10/heptacodium-plant-with-bright-future.html

and a more detailed history:
http://www.cpa.msu.edu/beal/plantofweek/plants/heptacodium_miconioides_20080922.pdf

woody, it's in the honeysuckle family- thus the butterfly interest.

best,
mindy
www.cottonarboretum.com/

Mindy - I described the berries above as a little smaller than honeysuckle berries - that was before I noticed it was in the honeysuckle family, but honeysuckle was the first thing that came to mind when I was trying to think of how to describe the fruit, so that's interesting.

Monique - thanks for the additional pictures and information. It seems logical to me that your longer growing season probably accounts for a good part of the reason why I don't have as many/as colorful calyxes as you do - but I have a lot more fruit (Probably thanks to the butterfly swarm!) Yours flowered almost a month before mine and it's most likely been warmer, with stronger sunlight than here. So I think I'll have to be satisfied with the flower display and count any color from calyxes or fruit in mild years as an unexpected bonus, not something to count on as an annual event.

Wow guys! Looking at your pics my zone envy is rearing it's head again. Thanks for sharing your pics.
Mindy, on a side note, my 'Chocolate' has not gone totally green yet and it's in full bloom now.