We drove to Leavenworth yesterday and despite steady rains over Stevens Pass, the leaf color was outstanding on the Eastside. We also took Highway 207 and an alternate route home and found even more color, however, leaves may be dropping quickly, winds were kicking up. Seemed to be a shortage of elderberries and Red-osier berries this year?

Blue elder fruits were more prevalent earlier in the season. I'm not seeing that much redtwig dogwood fruit this year either.

I'm basing my impression only on what I'm seeing here on the west side of the Sound but I was thinking this year has produced some extraordinarily fine fall color. Everything seems a little more colorful and intense than it has the last few years. Maybe it was all that rain we started out with or a lot of summer sun but whatever the reason, I'm sure enjoying it! Katsuras in particular seem to be much more colorful than usual. Even the bigleaf maples, which IMO are pretty blah most falls, are looking very good.

Solid, unblemished bright yellow from bigleaf maples on the other side, quite a contrast from what we get from the "cornflake tree" here - especially now that many are infested with tar spot.

Good year for Norway maple, many showed a lot of hot orange.

I was over Snoqualmie Pass last weekend and the color was better than most years. Not as good as Hi-Way 2 though.

My Bigleaf Maples have Tar Spot. I never noticed it before, but it sure is noticeable now!
Mike

It's all those paving projects that have been going on.

...snork!.....

It does look like tar has been dropped on the leaves.
Mike

{{gwi:642017}}

Just in time for Halloween. Especially that one on the right.

I just hope it's host specific. I sure don't want that fungus on my other Acers. THAT would be scary!
Mike,....in Maple Valley

"The disease is common on bigleaf maple on the Pacific Coast and also attacks many other species, particularly silver, mountain, and striped maple"

Here is a link that might be useful: Maple (Acer sp.)-Tar Spots : Pacific Northwest Plant Disease Handbook

Thank you, Ron.
Much appreciated.
I'll be on the lookout for it next year. I won't be burning my leaves to try to eliminate it like the article says. The mulch mower gets rid of the leaves for me. It probably doesn't do anything to get rid of the Tar Spot fungus though.
Most of the Acer macrophyllum leaves I get are from neighboring properties, so I will just live with it. No problem there.
Mike

Off the top of my head I can't think of any examples of other species I have seen with it here, but I think I may have seen a few. I certainly have not noticed it sweeping through other kinds like it is the bigleaf maple. I starting seeing it on bigleaf maple a few years ago and now there are hundreds, if not thousands of examples just where I go regularly.

Recently some improvement in coloring of some stands of westside bigleaf maples, as the show winds down. Sometimes pretty decent, although often the tree is already partly defoliated.

Not talking about ones with tar spot, of course.

The yellow and near-orange shades actually show up better against the green native conifers than the exotic species (red maple, Keith Warren hybrid maples etc.) marching through and along nearby commercial spaces would. These need blue conifers to set them off.

Likewise, there there is a reddish vine maple in front of a partly silvery Sitka spruce in the woods that can look good.

Black hawthorn and Oregon crabapple are usually orange etc. but tend not to blaze like the garden favorites that originate elsewhere. The crab can have an interesting mix of shades, cascara even more so. All three are wetland species, making these habitats the only places where there is predominantly reddish fall display in the wild in local lowlands - except where some vine maples are red or partly so.

My Japanese Maples are really looking good now.
Mike
{{gwi:452026}}

Notice how the most eye-catching part, in terms of color is where the blue conifer contrasts with the red maple.