Color rocks the garden each fall—wild yellow, demure purple, screaming red and orange, and quiet green. In coastal New England, nature creates this rush of splendid hues before the onset of winter white. “This part of the world is well- known for its autumn display,” says TV’s gentlemanly garden guru, P. Allen Smith, whom I met at an event that bore his name in Loudon, New Hampshire. “I like to add plants that bring contrast to the oranges and yellows of fall foliage.”

In my garden, those contrasts come from the leaves of deciduous trees and shrubs. Plants that were leafy green in spring and summer turn brilliant red and purple, standing out against orange, yellow, and some still-green leaves. More fall colors abound: white pine’s blue-green needles form a backdrop for the russet leaves of bald cypress (Taxodium distichum), a deciduous conifer, while the brown leaves of pin oak (Quercus palustris) stand aside for its gaudier kin, the scarlet oak (Quercus coccinea).

In a great year for color, trees and shrubs have fiery brilliance. Even trees that are typically dull can look lively. In one of those grand years, a narrow ‘Dawyck’ European beech (Fagus sylvatica ‘Dawyck’), usually bronzy in fall, can become a noble column of gold.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) explains why autumn hues can change from year to year. Of the three factors having a bearing on fall color—weather, leaf pigments, and length of night—only the latter does not change. Longer cooler nights and shorter days set off biochemical processes that lead to color change in the leaves of deciduous trees. Of course weather conditions, including the amount of rainfall, differ from year to year, which is one reason why fall color varies. According to the USDA, the most spectacular fall color comes after a “warm wet spring, favorable summer weather, and warm sunny fall days with cool nights.”

But leaves are just the beginning of autumnal delights. See how daylight shines on the bedazzling fall fruits of trees and shrubs. Some glisten hot pink (Sorbus alnifolia), while others are purple (Callicarpa spp.), shrimp-orange to gold (Ilex verticillata ‘Winter Gold’), scarlet (Viburnum setigerum), and burnished red (Aronia arbutifolia ‘Brilliantissima’).

In addition to the rosy fall flowers on paniculate hydrangeas, you can see blooms on more unusual plants. At the end of October and at times into November, perfect white flowers are still opening on my shrubby Franklinia against its purpled red fall leaves. And the seven-son flower tree (Heptacodium miconioides), which produces pretty white flower clusters in September, looks positively vampish after the blossoms fade. That’s when rose-red sepals—those little flower parts under the petals that once protected buds—look like wannabe-blooms that cover the canopy into late autumn.

Such fine fall displays extend your garden’s appeal in a New England growing season that is relatively short. Many homeowners focus on bulbs and flowering trees for spring, followed by a late spring to early summer peak of perennials without giving fall much thought. Their attention is turned toward the ground.

Fall is different. You have to look up for the full picture, beyond the confines of a yard. Big old overstory trees tie a neighborhood together, particularly in fall, and you can repeat some of these species or colors when you plant your garden trees. My autumn kicks off when native white ashes (Fraxinus americana), the original and tallest trees in the yard, turn clear yellow. Yet the big trees in my neighbors’ yards are just as vital to my views and my fall landscape as the trees near my house. The most exciting gardens I know fuse personal space with the natural landscape by means of trees chosen for scale and multiple seasons of interest.

Think about fall attributes when deciding which trees and shrubs to plant. As a starting point, here are some suggestions.

For trees with red fall color and more than one season of interest, consider sourwood (Oxydendron arboreum), red maple (Acer rubrum), sugar maple (Acer saccharum), kousa dogwood (Cornus kousa), stewartia (Stewartia pseudocamellia), and franklinia (Franklinia alatamaha).

Shrubs with red or red-orange fall color include sumac (Rhus spp.), chokeberry (Aronia arbutifolia and Aronia melanocarpa), cutleaf fullmoon maple (Acer japonicum ‘Aconitifolium’), witch alder (Fothergilla spp.), and redvein enkianthus (Enkianthus campanulatus).

If you want a tree with terrific yellow fall color, try ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba), European larch (Larix decidua), birch (Betula spp.), golden European ash (Fraxinus excelsior ‘Aurea’), and sassafras (Sassafras albidum). Shrubs with yellow fall color include bottlebrush buckeye (Aesculus parviflora), Chinese allspice (Sinocalycanthus chinensis), clethra (Clethra alnifolia), witch hazel (Hamamelis spp.), and spicebush (Lindera benzoin).

Some deciduous shrubs with outstanding fall fruits are tea viburnum (Viburnum setigerum), winterberry (Ilex verticillata), Korean mountain ash (Sorbus alnifolia), and red chokeberry (Aronia arbutifolia).

The Art of Scanning

To obtain the striking images in this story, photographer Kerry Michaels visited my garden in mid-October 2010 and collected numerous leaf samples. She bagged and labeled the samples, then drove them back to her home in Maine, where she scanned the leaves. Kerry worked late at night using a darkroom in a box that she had erected over the scanner. “In a camera, you can change the focus, but in a scanner you cannot, so anything not touching the glass is out of focus,” she says, adding that proper setup is crucial to her technique. Because leaves are three dimensional, Kerry uses tiny pebbles and paper clips to weigh them down and keeps the scanner open to prevent squishing them. She also needed to scan the leaves quickly, while they were still fresh. “It’s amazing how fast leaves start to lose their suppleness and color,” she says. “It’s important to scan live things right at their peak.”