Well, I don't know about the 'Golden Glory' cultivar of Cornus maas. Is that one with yellow/orange fruit, or just one selected for the blooms?

But, I just LOVE my plain old, seed-grown Cornus maas. Pretty in early spring, same time as the crocus and pussy willows, attractive all year. Best part, the fruit is like a cross between sour cherries and cranberries. Fabulous for sauce, in pies mixed with other fruits, even good dried like raisins. The only bad part is the pit.

Cornus Mas Golden Glory is a little less hardy, more upright barrel habit and "reportedly" has a more reliable/heavier bloom than the species.

I wish Cornus Mas had better fall color, otherwise that would be #1 as my next tree to plant.

I'm thrilled to be finally putting in my garden (though gee, it is chilly trying to plant out). My tree list is:
1 Kousa dogwood (I'm super excited to see it bloom in the spring)
5 Japanese liliacs (grouped together)
1 Honey locust (Sunburst) to give us dappled shade in one of the sitting areas
3 multi stemmed serviceberries (canadenis), for colour, screening and happy birds
and,
1 Crimson Spire Oak. It was a toss up between a hornbeam and this oak. I needed a skinny tree and was taken by the oak - the green leaves turn crimson in the fall, and it supposedly hangs onto some of its leaves during the winter!

Good start to the garden! Did you get your trees yet?

As an alternative to the Honey locust (if you don't mind slower growth) is Amur Maackia.

I quickly learned that Honey Locust leafs out late and drops leaves early.

Well I "think" I have my last 3 trees picked out.

#1 - Korean Maple.
#2 - Redbud (trying to find out how reliable the fall color is)
#3 - Homestead Buckeye

If I could find a Persian Parrotia I'd utilized one of those. Paw Paw was another interesting one.

{{gwi:454027}}

A favorite of mine is: October Glory (!)

I'll take some photos, hopefully today if we have a break in the rain!

I just looked up the Amur Macckia - awesome looking tree - I don't think that I've seen anything like that at my local nurseries.

When I see some of the other choices on whaas' list, I'm wishing that I had scoped out more options rather than the 5 Japanese liliacs (esp since I'm convinced that some may not recieve sufficient sunlight to do much in the way of blooming).

The October Glory maple has such beautiful colour!

I planted Persian Parrotia because of the advertised fall color. I have since found out that they are not reliable in that regard, and mine seems to be one of the duds. Some individual leaves are really beautiful, but the overall effect is quite underwhelming. Several people on this forum have had similar experience.

It's a good looking tree, and no health problems, but don't count on it for fall color.

I ordered mine from Forest Farm.

Alex

Hmmm. I'm currently trying to narrow my list down for small ornamental trees to plant in front of an evergreen screen. I really want blossoms, good fall color, and some berries. Candidates are:

White dogwood
Hawthorn - perhaps Winter King
Serviceberry
Native Fringe tree
Sourwood
Paperbark Maple
Red Maple
Purple leaf plum

Whaas - in regard to redbuds, I LOVE them. They are fabulous in spring! However, I must tell you that at least this far south, fall color is underwhelming - sort of a yellowish green. I have heard rumors that Forest Pansy (a purple-leafed cultivar) has a little better fall color. Don't know if it's true - and my baby Forest Pansy redbud certainly didn't have much fall color this year. But it was a very wet year, and lots of the trees around here were very late in coloring. My redbud has already lost all its leaves now.

Here in both the Milwaukee and Chicago area Serviceberry (Autumn Brilliance in particular) has consistently great fall color.

Same with Thornless Cockspur Hawthorn.

Both those optoins will give the full gammet of blooms, berries and fall color.

Not growing and knowing disease resistance and reliablility of blooms and fall color, the winterking bark would look pretty cool against the evergreens.

If rust diseases are an issue in your area you might want to limit how many hawthorns and serviceberries you use.

Thanks! I'm not really sure how big an issue rust is here. The University of Tennessee includes it in their publication on diseases of ornamaental trees. But I've lived here most of my life and don't recall ever hearing of it before - other than as a disease people get on roses in other parts of the country (probably a different type of rust entirely). I'll have to check with the extension office. I know that serviceberry and Winter King hawthorn are both recommended in books on trees for Tennessee and southern gardening. The Thornless Cockspur Hawthorn looks like an option, too - I'll have to see if I can get some comparison information, as it looks very similar.

Tell me about the Katsura tree - I saw a quote from Michael Dirr that if he could only have one tree that would be it. But I don't know that I've ever seen one in person, and the photo in my Southern Living gardening book is tiny! What especially do you like about it?

vvesper - here is a recent thread on the subject that may help:
http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/trees/msg101310517394.html?17

Here is a link that might be useful: Katsura visuals

Cool! Thanks gardengal. Looks like a nifty tree, but I will have to file that one away for now. I think it would be better sited somewhere different than the area I'm working on currently. I had seen it mentioned as such a great tree but hadn't gotten around to researching it yet.

Katsuras are great trees. They don't do well on dry sites, though. The heart-shaped foliage is very attractive. The fall color is excellent ranging from yellow to peach to apricot and sometimes a little dark pink, orange, or red thrown in. The best part about the fall foliage is the smell. It really does smell like cotton candy or burnt sugar. The smell can be quite strong around a large tree and is quite pleasant. The form and bark of the tree are somewhat unusual too and provides winter interest.

As far as other ornamental trees, some others that I like are:

Paperbark maple - beautiful cinnamon-brown peeling bark. It really looks cool when the sun shines through it and lights it up.

Sango Kaku japanese maple - Gorgeous red bark in the winter, bright lime green spring foliage and a nice golden yellow fall color.

Paper Birch - Beautiful white peeling bark, nice yellow fall color

Blue Spruce - obvious reasons

Cornus Kousa - nice show of blooms in the spring, beautiful disease resistant foliage, nice fall color and a nice display of bright red fruit

Nice question (or two questions).

It's interesting to see how much overlap there is in different folk's lists.

My three favorites would be:
1. Vine Maple--it's our local native harbinger of autumn;
2. Ginkgo--I like the shade of its green and the clear yellow autumn color, I wish mine was a female though;
3. Western Hemlock--I love how it lurks in the shade, waiting for the hot-shot Douglas-fir to grow old and die, and its pretty too, with the cutest cones you'll ever see.
--Wow it's tough to cut the list so short--

Like some of you, my wish list includes Katsura and Paper-bark Maple along with some others that just happen to be on my seed wish list:

Birch-bark Cherry--for its beautiful bark
Katsura--for the fall fragrance
Paperbark Maple--for the bark, plus I seem to like all maples...
Western Larch (found a few seeds this month!)
Raisin Tree--for its strangeness
Dove Tree--its pretty, and all the books say I should want it
Sugar Pine--mostly because David Douglas wanted it so much
Torrey Pine--for the killer cones
Idesia polycarpa
Santa Lucia Fir--because I wish I'd gathered seeds when I was there
Giant Chinquapin (Castanopsis chrysophila, not the Eastern one)--for walking under barefoot to admire the golden leaves
Wollemi Pine--(!) more bark

Well, I guess my list isn't based solely on ornamental virtues, but then I can't think of many trees that are actually ugly anyway.

Of course my corollary wish is for acreage to grow all these trees.

whaas -

I haven't grown it myself, but one nursery owner told me he thought Homestead probably has the best foliage (fall color & scorch resistance) of the buckeyes and horsechestnuts. It's also supposed to be seedless.

The same owner said Cornus officinalis 'Kintoki' is his favorite of the Cornus mas & officinalis varieties. I've observed decent fall color on these species in some years.

In my area, thornless cockspur (including Crusader) doesn't have outstanding fall color or fruit display. Winter King is probably the better choice. I have to say I don't care for the fragrance of hawthorn flowers, however.

I concur with alexander3's comments on Parrotia fall color. It is generally pest resistant, but it does sustain damage from Japanese beetles.

I seriously can't make decisions with the last of my limited space!

I'm going to have to wait til spring now.

Still going back and forth on these:

Paperbark vs. Korean Maple
White fringe Tree vs. Redbud

I think I'm set with the Homestead and Yellowwood.