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November 15, 2025

Tree favorites with Dazzling Fall Colors

New Hybrid Options for Smaller Spaces

This past month was a testimony to perfect weather creating brilliant leaf color in the fall. What if you could take those big tree favorites in a smaller more columnar version?

Hybridizing a plant is when you cross pollinate different parent trees to combine desirable traits in characteristics like tree size or disease resistance. Hybridizing is such a huge practice among nurseries that smaller trees are easier to come by.

I thought I would review three popular shade trees that have hybridized smaller versions with the same leaf shapes and bark textures/colors as their larger parent tree. It’s comforting to know there are other trees besides a crape myrtle that can be planted in narrower spaces and closer to a house!

The Ginkgo Tree and it’s Columnar Hybrids

The oldest fossil ever found is that of the Ginkgo biloba tree leaf dating back 170 million years. It is the oldest species of tree on Earth.

My introduction to the Ginkgo tree was in fourth grade when I went to a small Moravian grade school in Old Town Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. I remember kicking up beautiful yellow leaves from the shedding Ginkgo tree right outside the back entrance of the school. As we got out of class, my friends and I would shriek when one of us found a smelly fruit ball which had dropped from the tree in the cold weather.

What joy we all had pelting each other with stink bombs the size of moth balls as we ran to our next classroom!It took a few minutes for us all to stop gagging from the pungent wet spots of ginkgo fruit on our coats as we tried to conceal all of it from our teacher.

The photo above shows my old school with the ginkgo trees flanking the stairway out in the lawn. Also shown is the stinky ginkgo fruit!

The good news is that only the female tree that has smelly fruit. Ginkgos are ‘dioecious’ which means that without the male, females will not reproduce. Buy male trees only or hybrids that have no fruit!

Ginkgo leaves are a graceful fan shape. They are light green in the summer then turn golden yellow in the fall.

Consider hybrids of this same tree species that are bred for a narrow/columnar shape in your landscape. The ‘Sky Tower’ columnar hybrid, ‘Goldspire’ and ‘Grindstone’ locusts pictured below illustrate how growers take admirable qualities of a tree and create a hybrid form.

Ginkgos are not Native to the U.S. but do well here. They like full sun and moist well draining soil. As they get older they can handle drought well. The tree is a very slow growing tree at about a foot a year, but is disease resistant and long lived.

Parrotia Persica and it’s Narrow Hybrids

The next large tree we will look at that has been hybridized to a narrower version is the less known Parrotia persica also know as Persian Ironwood.

In early spring Parrotias have pink flowers. Leaves emerge with dark crimson edges that stay green through summer.

In the fall they show the autumn transitions of yellows, reds and purples. The plant is related to the fragrant witch hazel bush namely, Hamamelidacae, which has a very similar leaf shape and texture.

The bark of the Parrotia tree is gray and flakes with age. The photo below shows the large Parrotia tree bark color which is also found in the smaller varieties. The crown of the tree can be dense with crooked crossing limbs which is kind of quirky and fun.

‘Vanessa’ and ‘Persian Spire’ are the narrow species to buy for a smaller hybrid. These smaller varieties get between 15′-20′ wide and 25′ high.

Parrotia cultivars have a shallow and limited root system. It’s important to stake these narrow trees up initially so they don’t tilt. After a year or two they should be settled in so you can remove the stakes. I have used them on the corners of houses and also plopped mine right in the middle of my perennial garden to give the flowers underneath it a little bit of shade in the hot summer.

There are no known pests for this tree which is a fantastic attribute! Trees may be a little slow getting started, so be patient.

‘Street Keeper’ Honeylocust

Some of you might know of the Gledista Thornless Honey Locust with its wide canopy and thin leaves. The renown Virginian landscape artist of the 50’s, Charles Gillette, featured these as an architectural accent in many of his plans because of its full but airy leaf canopy which allows grass togrow underneath it.

Below is the Gillette plan I had scanned and then bought from the Virginia State Library for the Stony Point Garden when it was a residential house. The top most area in the plan has 5 locust trees on either side of a center area creating a lovely allee with lawn as the interior.

The narrow ‘Street Keeper’ version of this tree shown below has a narrow upright shape. Its ability to grow high clear canopies does not obstruct foot traffic. For these reasons it can be on a tree lawn or planted near your house. ‘Street Keeper’ locust blooms white in the spring like the larger honey locust. In the photo below the blooms are so profuse that the limbs droop!

‘Street Keeper” is tolerant of urban pollution, compacted soil, and a variety of moisture conditions that make it well suited for challenging city environments. The leaves have small delicate fern-like foliage that turns yellow in the fall. After defoliating, the tree leaves don’t need a lot of leaf raking.

The fall planting season is at its peak. If you can’t decide what to plant in a spot in your landscape, you may want to look for an interesting new hybrid. It may be fun to have a new look from an older version of a great plant.

Christie lives in Manakin Sabot , Virginia where she manages a 3 acre garden. Her blogs are written from her 35 years as a personal and professional gardener.