Overview
The gardens, collections, and natural areas at The Morton Arboretum are vibrant with fall colors this week. Everywhere you visit on the grounds, you can find plants changing into different shades of yellow, orange, and red.
At the Visitor Center (Parking Lot 1) and the Thornhill Education Center (Parking Lot 21), Freeman maples are showing shades of bright red. Hackberries, redbuds, Miyabe maples, crabapples, bottlebrush buckeyes, and tree lilacs have turned yellow. Oak-leaved hydrangeas and white ashes have turned purple.
In the tree collections, yellow color is showing on hackberries, corktrees, Kentucky coffeetrees, hickories, walnuts, cottonwoods, elms, and catalpas. In sunny locations, sumacs, Virginia creeper, and poison ivy are red. The China Collection (Parking Lot 17) and the Maple Collection (Parking Lot 14) offer an especially varied display of color.
In the Arboretum’s woodlands, sugar maples are showing orange to orange-red leaves on their tops and sunny sides. Yellow can be seen among the elm, ironwood, bitternut, and linden trees. Remarkable woodland color displays may be seen on the East Side from parking lots 8 through 15.
On the West Side, the gardens and grounds near the Thornhill Education Center show the full range of fall color. The West Side’s Alternate Route around Lake Marmo is an excellent spot to see sugar maples, witch-hazels, catalpas, and Freeman maples in colors of yellow, orange, and red.
In the Schulenberg Prairie (Parking Lot 25), grasses are turning from green to fall colors, with the late flowers of gentians and asters adding bloom highlights.
Of special interest are the colorful, flower-filled seasonal displays found near the Visitor Center, the new Gerard T. Donnelly Grand Garden, and Arbor Court (Parking Lot 1).
The fall color season is in full swing this week. Visit often, as the colors will be changing daily.
