Creating a landscape that looks attractive year-round transforms your Carrollton property from one that peaks in spring and fades into a winter slump to an ever-changing showcase. The key is layered design using perennial plants, evergreens, and interesting winter berries.
Unfortunately, many homeowners prioritize short bursts of beauty and neglect the rest. This results in seasonal maintenance challenges that eat away at time and energy. Visit Website for more information.
Evergreens
Evergreen trees and shrubs provide structure and balance to the landscape. They stand up to snow and winds, and help anchor planting areas, defining edges and balancing focal points. Evergreens can also create a sense of scale for larger outdoor features like patios, steps and walkways. Pairing them with low-lying perennial blooms, like camellias and azaleas, or other seasonal color, provides an opportunity for contrast that extends the season’s visual interest.
Planting with evergreens allows for greater flexibility in your design and maintenance regime. For instance, while many herbaceous plants require pruning in the fall, evergreens don’t, making them a convenient choice for planting along sidewalks and driveways. They also don’t drop their foliage in winter, giving them an added layer of texture and color in the garden when deciduous shrubs and flowers are dormant.
Depending on the species selected, evergreens can provide a wide range of textures and colors. Foliage varies from bright green to deep forest green and burgundy, and some offer variegated or blue-gray coloring as well. The texture of evergreens is often enhanced by combining them with tall grasses and spreading ground cover shrubs.
Taller evergreens, particularly conifers, are like year-round exclamation points in the landscape. Their sculptural form and sturdiness add visual interest in winter, when other plants are bare or at their tiniest. They’re a popular choice for foundation plantings, and can serve as natural privacy screens or backdrops for more delicate shrubs and flowering perennials.
In the front yard, evergreens can be used to frame doorways and porches, highlight a favorite specimen tree or planter box, or establish boundaries for lawn areas that aren’t shaded by buildings or large trees. Their slender shape can even soften the lines of hardscape elements, and make pathways and patios feel more welcoming in winter.
Arborvitae, holly (including yarrow and dwarf Chinese holly), juniper and spruce are the most common types of evergreens, but there are hundreds of different options to choose from. Planting them in the correct environment with good drainage and soil conditions is key, and light shaping with a hedge trimmer or pruning shears during the correct season helps them maintain their shape and vigor.
Texture
Many gardeners focus on choosing plants that flower throughout the spring, summer and fall to provide attractive visuals during those seasons. But if you want your landscape to look good year-round, you should also focus on selecting plants that add texture when they aren’t in bloom.
Achieving a four-season aesthetic involves using a combination of perennial plants, evergreen trees, and hardscaping elements. You can use the plant selection process to create a sense of style that is consistent through the seasons.
For example, if you want your landscape to have a modern feel, consider incorporating plants like yaupon hollies (Cedrus jubatus), flowering dogwoods (Cornus florida), and eastern redbuds (Cercis canadensis) for their vibrant spring flowers. These same plants can also be used for their colorful autumn foliage and for their winter berries, which offer additional color to the landscape.
Similarly, the trunks and bark of trees can play a role in the overall texture of a landscape. Slick, straight trunks like those of crape myrtles (Lagerstroemia indica) and yaupon hollies can give a modern, sleek feeling to the landscape, while textured barks like those of hickory (Carya spp.), redbuds, and Texas persimmons can add more drama.
In winter, it’s important to incorporate plants that can stand up to the snow and ice that dominates much of the country. For this, it’s a great idea to choose shrubs and trees with interesting bark or twig structure, or that feature a contrasting color like white or gray. The same holds true for grasses, which can help keep a landscape from looking completely stark and barren in the winter.
Focal Points
Focal points grab your attention and pique interest in the landscape. They can be a statement plant, water feature, statue, bench, garden art, or even a decorative element like a trellis or panel. Focal points provide definition and purpose, tying the garden together. They can also help draw the eye and distract from an unsightly feature or lack of plantings. Focal points that contrast in form, texture or color make them stand out and create a sense of visual balance and symmetry. Choose focal points that fit with your overall garden style, such as a fountain or statue in a cottage garden or a classic statuary in a formal European-style design. Focal points should also complement the scale of your home and garden, as well as the style of the surrounding neighborhood.
Using multiple focal points throughout the garden provides continuity of color and interest from season to season. This can be accomplished by incorporating plants with staggered bloom times. For example, a dogwood tree (Cornus florida) offers spring flowers, late summer fruit and vibrant fall foliage. Other plants that offer multifaceted seasonal interest include the corkscrew willow (Chamaecyparis) with its colorful bark, spruce (Picea sp.) with its textured winter needles, and the perennial black-eyed susan (Rudbeckia) with its beautiful seed heads in fall.
Another way to add year-round interest is by introducing structural elements that are striking in their own right, such as a decorative gate or an arched entryway. These can be used to divide garden rooms or create a grand entrance to your property. Incorporate lighting to highlight these features at night for added drama and impact.
A good rule of thumb is to have one or two focal points in each garden area. Adding too many competing focal points can overwhelm the space and cause visual confusion. Use hardscape elements, such as paths or lighting, to subtly highlight your focal points and avoid overcrowding. Creating a landscape with a year-round visual rhythm requires a thoughtful blend of plant selection, evergreen foliage and hardscaping. By designing with these key elements, you can have a garden that is as appealing in the off-season as it is during its peak.
Maintenance
While it is easy to find plants that bloom for just a few weeks in spring, summer or fall, it takes more thought and effort to select flowers, shrubs and trees that offer color for multiple seasons. This is where perennials come in. Perennials provide color all year long and are usually low maintenance. This is especially true of sedum, perennial kale and ornamental grasses, which are often used for ground cover or in beds around evergreens.
Achieving a four-season landscape requires a combination of plant selection, evergreen foliage, and hardscaping. In addition, the use of seasonal features helps to create a dynamic landscape that is visually engaging throughout the entire year.
Seasonal interest starts with a well-designed plan that is implemented over time. Many gardeners start by identifying visual gaps in their landscape and then selecting appropriate plants to fill those spaces. This process may take a few years to complete, but the result is a landscape that offers beauty and enjoyment for much of the year.
Once the plantings have been chosen, a thoughtful blend of colors, textures, and floral varieties is important to maintain year-round interest. This approach also helps to reduce the amount of maintenance required as the garden transitions through the seasons.
The final piece to consider is how to add interest to the landscape in winter, when most of the plants are dormant. There are a number of ways to achieve this, including evergreens like deodar cedar (Cedrus deodara) and Arizona cypress (Cupressus arizonica), shrubs with attractive seed heads or brightly colored berries, such as American holly (Ilex opaca), and trees that provide interesting branch structure, such as common witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana).
The goal is a landscape that is colorful, engaging and aesthetically pleasing in all seasons. It is not always easy to achieve, but with a bit of planning and the use of a mix of plant types, it is possible.