Are there any native tulip trees to compare to? Botanical garden nearby?
would you keep them for the flowers someday? If fall color is the main factor, you can do better and now is the perfect time to look if it is not too late in your zone (too cold).
John

It's not clear from the op how many years the fall color has been disappointing. This year, however, has been a very poor one for fall color throughout the Northeast. First, a cold wet spring encouraged various fungus diseases which led to early leaf drop and discolored leaves in many tree species. Then, excessive rain coupled with unusually warm nights in September/October decreased the show dramatically.

Another factor is climate. In my experience, many trees and shrubs native to the Southeast and highly regarded for their fall color just do not put on a comparable display when grown in more northerly areas.

It could be a number of things. We live down in a valley type setting, we have trees all around us that turn color. However, half of them turned brown and dropped their leaves before the others even started to change.

We also have 3 large trees in our front yard. 1 turns yellow, 1 turns redish/yellow and the other turns a yellowish orange. This year the yellowish orange tree just browned up and lost it's leaves in a couple of days before the other 2 trees started to change. The tree with a lot of red usually in it turned completely yellow. The last tree is normal.

I think in my situation it could be because we burned tons of brush this summer along with our neighbors. We all were clearing off our properties and had multiple large fires every weekend.

I have fond memories of the ground spangled with different colors of leaves and the tulip poplars were in a woodsy setting so were very tall. Looking out the second story was like being in a tree house. I live in the star studded country so no comparisons or botanical gardens. This location is about 1.5 hours north of the old one where the trees put on a show. THe previous years they were too small to notice, but the color still wasn't up to par.
I've been trying to put trees that have nice autumn tones in a grouping where I can see them from the house. Sugar maple/yellow Norway maple locally are the only reliable larger trees with *good* color that I notice here. Suggestions would be appreciated.

with 8 weeks of drought.. and near 100.. with little cooling at night ...

i would say half the leaves simple fell off this early fall with no color change... and the rest have barely done anything in that regard ...

weather matters ...

as to yours... are they in the lawn.. do you fert/weed killer the lawn ...???

TP are pretty fast growers.. i am wondering why yours are only 6 to 7 feet in 5 years???? are they properly planted????? telephone poled???? pix????

ken

Sorry, no capacity to upload pictures here.
They were only about 6 nches tall when planted as seedlings and have lived mostly on rainfall with being hand watered regularly only the first year and if drought like conditions warrant but hard to get a hose there. They are in an area of road frontage but this is almost a gravel road, not heavily travelled. I don't do anything but mow the grass-no fert or weed killers. Like I said, they are in full sun so are not tall and leggy, having much lower side branching. TO me, they look good the rest of the year and have a nice conical shape. The soil has been altered a bit with a layer of gravel a few inches down in the past due to mud (It's a flood plain area though hasn't affected that particular spot).

Most trees here are still in green leaf, some have lost their leaves (without any coloration), my Japanese maple started turning in July when we hit 110 F.. Then there were repeated, massive flooding events. Now we have a freak snowstorm predicted tomorrow--only the third time since the civil war that an accumulating snow is expected at the coast.
You tell me what's "normal" now--I give up!--Virtually no color this year!

Did we even have fall this year? Here in mid-New England we had 80 degrees F in October, and the first frost was last night, which is the very latest I can ever remember in 25 years of gardening. Now followed by this weird snowstorm coming tomorrow night! Ugh.

And the fall color has been pretty mediocre with lots of crunchy brown leaves. The Sugar maples which are numerous and usually stunning, are overall a big disappointment. There are a few that had some color, but they had lost leaves so it wasn't a nice full canopy. Most just turned yellow brown and lost most their leaves early from the top down.

I wouldn't judge any particular specimen too harshly this year, if there is such an overall poor performance.

The tulip poplars are great this year in the triangle. They were great last year too. The summer was full of drought, but the end of the summer and beginning of fall have been very moist. Now the cool weather is here and whatever leaves are left are popping bright yellow for us. The hickories are also quite bright this year. The maples seem mediocre...good reds, but I'm an orange guy and I just don't see much of it this year.

Color has been wierd here too. We had a Tulip tree until last year, it was rotting at the base. Previous to this it had great bright yellow color. I have 3 Quercus Alba (White oak) and they each have different fall color this year, Ucky yellow with green veins and brown edges, still totally green, and reddish orange. I have 6 Nuttals oak the 5 in a row are still green, one 20 ft away is a nice bright red. It must be the weather. It's been warmer than I remember and more rainy. Maybe there some anthractnose on our trees. Most sycamores around here mine and wild ones are naked already. Maybe it's affecting other trees too? I'm in Fayette county, don't know what county the OP is in.

We've been here 35 years and this is probably the strangest for fall color yet. Severe drought and heat in July and August followed by a very wet September.

The C. florida were spectacular and held their color for two weeks or more. The Cladrastis kentuckea had two color seasons separated by several days, the second being very nice.

I've got a V. sieboldii that I planted in '78. It's not very drought tolerant and had significant die-back in the '88 drought. It's also been hit by late freezes from time to time. It's probably 12-14 feet tall, but has never had decent fall color�until this year. The leaves are showing a fairly nice reddish-coppery color.

I've got a 5- to 7-year-old V. dendatum that came up from seed. It had nice color for the first time two years ago, but not last year. It looks very good again this year. The two V. 'Blue Muffins' I planted in '07 are looking very good this year, too! Better than any prior year.

I get V. trilobum seedlings coming up all the time. There were old plants here when we moved in. Most aren't doing much this year in terms of color, but two that are probably 3-4 years old are spectacular this year. They are far better looking than any others I've seen in our yard in the 35 years we've been here.

Hickories seemed to have normal color this year, but the white ash were a total bust. My ancient Chinkapin began losing leaves much earlier than usual, but a smaller offspring (12-15'?) that I kept watered through the drought is just now beginning to lose it's leaves in a more normal fashion.

Lots of warmer than normal days in the past 2-3 weeks, I think, as well. I didn't see any frost until this past Saturday when it dropped all the way down into the 20s. I assume the warmer weather of late is responsible for some of the strangeness. We've had good rains, too in recent weeks. 3" in 3 days in mid-October! All in all, it was the "reddest" year I've seen in this yard.