Pacific Northwest Native Plants for Fall Color and Interest

Looking to spice up your fall garden?  These Pacific Northwest native plants will fit the bill with their unique fall features that will enhance your landscape this time of year.  Better yet, they all serve as a food source for birds and other wildlife too!

Vine Maple (Acer circinatum) - this shrub-like tree is a real standout in the fall garden, with its vibrant display of leaves as they change color.  The vine maple is one of the most popular ornamental shrubs in the Pacific Northwest, featuring symmetrical palmate leaves that grow in the opposite directions on stems.  As a tree, vine maples can grow to 16 to 26 feet in height.  Planted in shade, vine maple leaves tend to turn yellow in the fall, while those planted in the sun tend to turn more brilliant colors such as orange or scarlett.  A variety of birds including nuthatches, chickadees, warblers and woodpeckers eat the seeds from vine maples, as do squirrels and other small mammals.

Oregon Grape (Mahonia nervosa) -  Cascade Barberry, Cascade Oregon Grape or Longleaf Mahonia - by whatever name you call it, low growing Oregon Grape is an excellent addition to the fall garden.  Featuring spikey leathery long leaves, Oregon Grape grows to about two feet in height, and can serve as groundcover or a border plant (particularly as a barrier thanks to its prickly leaves).  Oregon grape is  especially suited to  dry shade and woodland gardens.  Yellow flowers emerge in the spring, which gradually turn into large clusters of blue berries that birds and other wildlife love. 

Common Snowberry (Symphoricarpos albus) - Snowberry, also known as Common Snowberry, gets its name from the small white berries that appear this time of year, and which are an important food source for robins and thrushes.  This deciduous shrub features small oval leaves, with  delicate pinkish flowers that bloom May through August.  In the landscape, snowberries can reach a height of three to nine feet.  Although it typically grows in dry to moist forest, clearings and rocky slopes, snowberry is very adaptable to many conditions.  Spreading through dense runners, snowberries are especially useful in the landscape for controlling erosion on steep slopes.