Best Trees and Shrubs for Adding Color to your Landscape

Red Maple
These heat-tolerant beauties won’t give you grief in summer, but will absolutely stun bright with fall color come autumn! They’re low-maintenance, and highly suitable for our Sacramento environment.
The October Glory and Autumn Blaze are our favorites – when late October comes, the October Glory will put on a show of bright orange coloring and the Autumn Blaze variety will provide your home with a burst of fall reds.

Chinese Pistache
The Chinese Pistache tree will bring you a heat-tolerant tree with a great pop of fall color. Leaves put on quite a color changing show in the fall, changing from its summer light green to deep red, and finally a bright eye-catching orange.

Japanese Maple
With a wide array of varieties and colors, these are among our area’s most popular and prized ornamental trees! Common varieties come in shades of green and deep reds, but variegated leaves like the Butterfly Maple, and speciality varieties are a great find! No matter which type you choose, Japanese Maples are colorful, jewel tone gems of the garden!

Blue Oak
One of our precious native trees, the California Blue Oak is famous for its deep blue hued leaves. These will thrive easily in the right space, and be a showstopper in your landscape.

Atlas Cedar
If you’re looking for something unique for your garden, the Atlas Cedar is a fabulous choice. The blue-gray of its needles gives off an almost otherworldly magic and will always be a conversation starter.

Lantana
We love planting Lantana shrubs! These come in a wide variety of colors, from yellows, pinks, oranges, and even bright purples. They mix together well, and are highly heat and drought resistant.

Crape Myrtle
The Crape Myrtle is a Sacramento-area favorite for nearly year-round color shows! These fast-growing cultivars are happy in heat, and are widely available in magenta, lilac, white, and pale pink.

Western Redbud
Lovely magenta flowers, heart-like leaves, and fabulously heat and drought tolerant, the Western Redbud is a great colorful addition to your Sacramento area garden or landscape!

Arbutus Marina “Strawberry Tree”
This stunner will give you a great pop of color with its year-round drooping pink bell flowers and bright red-orange fruit.

Saucer Magnolia
With dozens – if not hundreds – of varieties in nearly any shape, size, and bloom color you can dream up, Magnolias have good reason to be so popular! By far the most utilized in the Sacramento area are Little Gem Magnolias (Big shiny, decorative green leaves with white creamy blooms) and Saucer Magnolias (These are often the first to bloom in our area, welcoming Sacramentans into spring with with showy pink blossoms by February).