Bruised Beauty

At the Arboretum in Superior, which is at a higher elevation than here, the bush river willow turns a number of colors in December, including bright yellow. Here in the desert I basically get bruised purple with hits of yellow and a little red. However you slice it, it's nice to see some fall color, and this tree is doing very well in the planter that's sheltered off the back of our house. It remains to see how large this thing will grow and how long the planter will contain it, but my hope is that eventually it will grow up through the arbor and provide some additional shade. A lot of trees in the valley get stunted by the heat, so I'm not expecting this thing to get nearly as large as the ones in Superior.