Things That Are Red and Things That Are Not

I miss the fall reds of maple trees, dogwoods, black gums and stewartias that grew around my New England home. In Santa Fe we have no maples, but the ash trees planted in town do color a deep russety red and that's nice. And Texas red oak is unrivaled, like this one at the botanical garden:

Here in my own courtyard garden I look forward to a few things that are supposed to be bright red in autumn, like the wall of Virginia creeper vine on our fence, and the Japanese maple I specifically planted, 'Sieryu', for its fiery red fall color.

But.

The Virginia creeper vine (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) was here when we bought the house, absolutely smothering the back fence. It's full and green, and in fall Virginia creeper is justly famous for its brilliant red, like these typical examples:

I couldn't wait to have that as a backdrop wall for my newly planted gardens in fall. But our Virginia creeper has never had any color whatsoever.

We've been here three Octobers now (!), and each of the 3 years it has been zapped by early frost and goes all brown and crispy in the ugliest possible way. This is what we actually have to look at from early October to May:

It never develops even a speck of that famous red. Sigh.

The Japanese maple was the one plant I got just to have scarlet fall color. It is doing surprisingly well in part shade, protected from dry winds and in a pot that is kept well watered. It is fluffy and green and growing.

But it has absolutely no fall color whatsoever. No red. No scarlet. No crimson. The lacy leaves are rusty brown. I despair.

It's partly scorch -- the leaves do brown a bit at the end of the season. But it's mostly that they are coloring up orange brown, with no hint of the scarlet red I expected.

This is what could have been, what 'Seiryu' is supposed to look like in fall and what I planned for:

Mine, carefully isolated from our alkaline soil in its big pot, well watered, fertilized, and shaded -- well, it's another thing in my fall garden that is not red.

But I do have some spectacular red sumac shrubs -- the beautiful glossy 'Gro-Low' sumacs are brilliant in fall.

Also, groundcover plumbagos are doing their best to satisfy my desire for some scarlet. These are Ceratostigma plumbaginoides, and some day I'll have a big patch of them, but right now they are each individual little clumps, not yet ready to spread out. But red!

And . . . I have red mums. That's something, no?