Planting Tips For Year-Round Colour
A colourful garden is a beautiful sight to behold, but it can be difficult to maintain. Flowers and plants typically fade with the changing seasons, meaning what once was a bright, beautiful garden becomes a bland landscape in no time.
While plants are the primary source of colour outdoors, they are not the only one. There are plenty of ways you can add colour to your landscape and keep this up all year long.
If you are looking to brighten your everyday life and have a vibrant landscape throughout the year, Taming Mother Nature is here to help. Our team offers comprehensive garden design and landscaping services to clients across the region, helping to bring out the best in their gardens all year round.
In this post, we are sharing some of the best tips to create a colourful landscape with stands the test of time.
Understanding Seasonal Blooms And Colourful Landscapes
To create a garden that is full of year-round colour, you first need to understand the different kinds of plants and how they bloom. As we have mentioned, plants and flowers are the main source of colour outdoors, and they will be a key part of your colourful garden design.
Each plant type has unique growth patterns and will bloom at different times in the year based on these. To ensure your garden has year-round colour, these plant types need to be coordinated and carefully installed so that something is always in bloom, no matter the season.
For a colourful garden design throughout the year, you need to understand the following plant types.
Annuals: Seasonal Showstoppers
Annual plants and flowers complete their growing cycle within one season. This means that at one point in the year, annual plants will germinate, grow, flower, seed, and die. They offer short bursts of colour that can bring some vibrancy and excitement to your garden, but should not be solely relied on for year-round colour.
There are annuals that bloom in the warmer months as well as the colder seasons, which is why they are a great addition to your outdoor space. A combination of annuals with other plants can ensure you have year-round colour in your garden.
They can be replanted every year to add more colour and interest and are a great way to fill in gaps across flower beds or borders.
Some examples of annuals you may want to consider include:
- Spring/Summer Annuals: Petunias, marigolds, begonias, and lobelias to add colour to the garden during the warmest months of the year and welcome in the new seasons beautifully
- Winter Annuals: Pansies, violas, and cyclamen can brighten up grey winter days and offer colour in the coldest weather, making them a great addition to a UK landscape
Perennials: Long-Lasting Colour
Unlike annuals, perennials return year after year meaning they can become a staple within your garden design. They bloom in the spring and die in winter before returning again the following year.
Some perennials are evergreen, which means they provide foliage all year round. While the flowers and colourful petals may die off in the winter, the lush green leaves remain, so your garden always has a touch of colour.
Perennials usually bloom for specific periods, often providing the most colour for a couple of weeks or months in the spring and summer. While they may take a year or two to fully establish, once they do, you have a returning source of year-round colour in your garden.
Coordinating the blooms of your perennials with annuals and evergreen plants ensures your garden will always have something new going on. Many perennials are easy to add to flower beds and borders and can be the perfect addition to traditional or cottage gardens.
Some examples of perennials for year-round colour include:
- Spring Bloomers: Hellebores, primroses, and peonies to welcome in the new season and add some colour to the fluctuating spring weather
- Summer Bloomers: Echinacea, lavender, delphiniums, and salvias thrive in the hot summer conditions, offering colour, scent and texture to your landscape at this time.
- Autumn Bloomers: Asters, sedum, and rudbeckia continue to bloom in the colder months, ensuring your garden is still interesting and attractive even as the warm season ends.
Biennials: The Two-Year Bloomers
Biennials are similar to annuals in the sense they go through their life cycle in a particular season, but this takes place over two years instead of one. With biennials, you can experience two years of colour and interest in your garden.
In the first year, these plants develop foliage, and in the second, they flower before dying. Two years of colour and interest is provided with these flowers, and they can be used across your landscape for year-round colour.
Incorporate biennials in your garden borders or create a small garden meadow that experiences unique displays each year. By carefully planting and ensuring ongoing maintenance, you can repeat the pattern of your biennials to have ongoing appeal in the garden.
Biennials include:
- Foxgloves
- Hollyhocks
- Sweet William
- Forget-me-nots
Deciduous Trees & Shrubs: Seasonal Interest
Dediuous trees and shrubs are those that lose their leaves during the autumn and winter but can provide colour and interest throughout the year. Ahead of the winter, these trees and shrubs will come to bloom in the spring and summer.
They can offer colourful foliage, bright berries and fruits and even flowers, based on the type you choose. In most cases, deciduous trees follow a similar blooming pattern, where they are at their peak flowering in the spring and summer before changing colour in the autumn. The rich autumnal hues of trees and shrubs add more interest to your landscape before they die off in the winter.
Some deciduous trees can produce colourful berries to ensure there is still colour in your garden throughout the year. There are various types you can consider, including:
- Spring/Summer Blooming: Cherry blossom, magnolia, and lilac offer colourful flowers and stunning green foliage in the bright season
Autumn Colour: Japanese maple, rowan and liquidambar offer rich, warm hues to prolong the year-round colour in your garden - Winter Interest: Dogwood, witch hazel, and cotoneaster offer winter colour through their coloured stems, foliage, and berries, respectively.
Year-Round Colour With Foliage: Exploring Evergreens
As well as incorporating a range of plant types to add year-round colour to the garden, evergreen plants and shrubs should be considered.
Evergreens maintain their leaves throughout the year, offering year-round greenery and structure to your garden. While evergreens are primarily known for their foliage, some plants can also produce flowers, berries or even colourful leaves based on the season.
Some evergreens bloom in different seasons, but most of these plants and shrubs remain consistent throughout the year. They can be used to add structure and cohesion to the landscape, creating a consistent source of colour. Hedges and evergreen shrubs are a great way to add structure to the landscape, increasing garden privacy while also creating an attractive outdoor space.
Evergreens over some form of greenery or colour at all times of the year, meaning your garden remains interesting even well into the winter when everything else has died off.
There are various kinds of evergreen plants you can consider in your garden, including:
- Flowering Evergreens: Camellias, rhododendrons, and heather offer both colourful flowers and lush green foliage through the year.
- Foliage Evergreens: Boxwood, holly, yew, and laurel maintain their green foliage in all seasons, offering some colour and structure to your garden throughout the year.
Based on the kind of evergreens you choose these can be used in multiple areas of the garden for year-round colour. Evergreens are perfect for hedging and structural planting, whether to border to garden or to create zones in the landscape. The lush green foliage is excellent background planting, creating a stunning backdrop to every event throughout the year.
Evergreens can be the foundation for your garden design, as they maintain the structure and layout throughout the year. Each new season gives you another opportunity to work with the lush green foliage and add more colour where required.
Conclusion
It is possible to ensure year-round colour in your garden using a combination of plants, trees and shrubs. All plants have their own blooming patterns, based on what type they are, and these can be combined to provide year-round colour.
With a combination of annuals, perennials, evergreen shrubs and deciduous trees, you can create a vibrant landscape that remains attractive and colourful throughout the seasons.
Taming Mother Nature is a leading landscaping company that offers a comprehensive planting service, as well as year-round garden maintenance to keep your landscape in prime condition. We can help add year-round colour and ensure your landscape is healthy, no matter the weather.
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