How to Grow a Year-Round Garden With Color and Interest Every Season (2024)

Research Native Plants

Before you prep a garden bed or purchase a plant, do your research. "I really think people should take time looking at public gardens and local private gardens for ideas that work in their specific area," suggests Putnam.

To begin your research, look for plants appropriate for your region. Native plants, in particular, are good options because they're conditioned to survive in your area. If thumbing or scrolling through a catalog, be sure to note a plant's USDA Plant Hardiness Zone to ensure it's compatible with where you live.

Knowing what plants are hardy in your region allows you to combine perennials, annuals, and container plantings for four-season color. Visit garden centers and nurseries at different times of the year to get a sense of the blooming schedule and foliage color of plants to see how they look in different seasons.

Survey Your Garden

Take an inventory of the plants in your garden now, and note their bloom schedule. You can do this with a simple journal or spreadsheet that lists the plant name in the leftmost column and months (or weeks, if you're more detail-oriented) across the top.

If you have spring-flowering bulbs or a forsythia bush, for example, mark an X under the month in spring they bloom in your area. If you have daylilies, mark an X through the entire summer. Once you've inventoried your existing garden bloomers, the spreadsheet will reveal gaps in your garden's sequence of bloom that you can fill with other annuals, perennials, and shrubs.

Once you identify plants that grow in your zone and bloom at the right time, that still doesn't mean they'll thrive in your particular garden. To be successful, you also need to consider these factors when choosing plants for every part of your garden:

• How much sunlight does it get?
• How wet or dry is the soil and how well does it drain?
• Is it susceptible to animals or pests?
  

These environmental characteristics, along with your growing zone and bloom schedule, will help you choose plants that give you the best chance of attaining year-round color in your garden.

Invest in Year Round Perennials

Perennials are more expensive than annuals, but they pay off in the long run because—with proper maintenance—they come back year after year. Perennials are perfect for creating the backbone of your garden, and then you can add more color and interest by filling in with annuals.

Long Bloomers

Select a variety of flowering plants that bloom at different times to ensure you have plenty of pretty flowers mingling with colorful foliage for most of the year. Many perennials bloom more than once or have an extended bloom season, such as coneflowers, easy-to-grow roses, and salvias.

All Season Shrub Options

While flowers and blooms get loads of attention, don't forget flowering shrubs because they're perennials, too. Though often in the background, shrubs can play an important role as a focal point and lend vertical interest to a landscape.

Consider a shrub for every season:

• Azalea for vibrant spring color
• Hydrangea for show-stopping summer blooms
• Viburnum for its display of brilliant-colored fall foliage
• Holly for its vivid red berries in winter
  

Think Beyond Evergreens for Winter Interest

"Unfortunately, some people only define a year-round garden with flowers," explains Putnam. "We can use stem color, fall foliage, conifers, and plant structure to create beautiful spaces as well." This is particularly important for those who garden in areas with harsh winters.

While annuals are non-players in winter (by definition), perennial tall grasses retain their interest in cold weather and provide shelter and seeds for winter critters. Some varieties of yucca (Zones 4 to 11) stay green in winter, poking their spiked foliage through the snow.

Evergreens like hollies and junipers are always a welcome sight in a winter garden, but that's not all. Bright orange-red berries of the firethorn bush (Zones 6 to 9) are equally attractive to people and birds, and the name of the red twig dogwood (Zones 3 to 7) pretty much says it all.

When selecting plants for background texture and winter hardiness, don't limit yourself to evergreens. "I actually think that we spend way too much time and thought on making sure the garden is evergreen," adds Putnam, "Many plants that lose their leaves offer stem color, early spring flowering, and some even have contorted stems or exfoliating bark that are beautiful in the winter landscape."

Opt for Early Blooms for Spring Variety

At this point, you probably have the idea behind a year-round garden. It's not so much about the sequence of blooms but more about the succession of interest—because the ornamental value of plants is more than just flowers.

Here are some examples of landscape plants with spring interest. Pansies are a popular spring-blooming annual that can take a bit of frost. They flower all winter in the sub-tropics (Zones 7 to 11), but in most of the U.S., they make colorful additions to spring and fall landscapes, and die back in the heat of summer.

Spring bulbs are the perennial harbingers of the blooming season and are always a welcome site after a chilly winter. Tulips (Zones 3 to 8), daffodils (Zones 4 to 8), and crocus (Zones 3 to 8) are the most iconic and come in about every color you can imagine. The problem is, once spring has sprung, their blooms fade and their foliage dies back, leaving a void unless overplanted with a summery substitute.

Among other favorite spring-flowering perennials are peonies. You can find early-, mid-, and late-blooming varieties to create a long-lasting spring display of these large, exquisite, showy blooms.

For a spring-flowering shrub, rhododendrons (Zones 4 to 9)—a plant family that includes azaleas (Zones 6 to 8)—are popular and available in a wide range of plant sizes and bloom colors. If you have lots of space, a viburnum (Zones 2 to 9) might fit the bill, with snowball-sized white and pink blooms. Some viburnum species are invasive though, so make sure you choose one that's not designated as such for your area.

Mix Annuals and Perennials in the Summer

You hardly need help finding interesting-looking plants for your summer garden. Though not meant as specific recommendations for your garden, these suggestions should give you an idea of how to mix annuals and perennials to maximize their interest and color.

Among the most popular summer annuals for brilliant color are marigolds, petunias, and zinnias. Even though blooms are abundant in summer, don't overlook annuals with colorful foliage like begonias, coleus, and purple basil.

Color-wise, perennials are generally more subdued than annuals, but for some colorful ones that bloom all summer long, look at iris (Zones 3 to 9), milkweed (Zones 3 to 9), and black-eyed Susan (Zones 3 to 11). For colorful foliage, consider coral bells (3 to 9) and hardy begonias (Zones 6 to 9).

Don't forget shrubs and trees for summer color, too. Many varieties of roses (Zones 3 to 10), one of America's top outdoor plants, provide blooms all summer long. For rich purple-to-red colored foliage in summer, there's the Japanese maple (Zones 5 to 9).

Embrace Colorful Fall Foliage

There are many foliage colors throughout the year that offer plenty of interest and texture to your garden. "The use of foliage colors in chartreuse, purple, and shades of green in the garden is as good as flowers," says Putnam.

Stuck on what to choose for fall interest? Asters (Zones 3 to 8) and chrysanthemums (Zones 5 to 9) are among the most popular flowering perennials for fall, but there's also ornamental kale with its curly, frilly, or ruffled foliage and ornamental cabbage with its flat leaves with contrasting colors. These cool-season perennials (grown annuals in Zones 2 to 11) provide brilliant foliage in a wide range of colors.

For a shrub with brilliant fall color, you can hardly do better than an oakleaf hydrangea (Zones 5 to 9), whose leathery green leaves turn purple, orange-bronze, or red in the fall. This variety is a triple threat with its display of large white-to-pink blooms in summerand peeling, exfoliating branches for color and texture interest in winter.

Enlist Planning Assistance

With so many factors to consider—growing zone, moisture, colors, sunlight, flowering schedules—planning a garden with year-round interest may seem impossibly complex, but it doesn't have to be. Here are just a few strategies for making garden-planning tasks easier:

• Add one plant at a time. Instead of planning your entire yard down to the last seedling, start by adding just one new plant per season, whether it's a spring-flowering perennial, a flat of summer-blooming annuals, a shrub with gorgeous fall foliage, or an evergreen for color in winter. Start in one corner and then expand with the seasons, learning as you go.
• Seek professional help. For a specific query like, "What's a shade-loving, drought-tolerant plant with fall color?" the pro at your local garden center is likely to know the answer and, even better, show you some options. Many garden centers offer more extensive free advice to their plant-buying customers, and others provide planning services for a fee.
  
• Use a garden-planning app. While there are many gardening apps available, look for one that caters to ornamental (as opposed to vegetable) gardening and that has a robust search capacity. For example, Landscaper's Companion - Plant & Gardening Guide ($10, apple.com) can filter a search by a plant's name, sun exposure, zone, height, bloom time, deer resistance, and more.
  

Keep Up With Maintenance

Good gardening practices—mulching, weeding, watering, and fertilizing—go a long way to helping your garden reach its potential year-round. "Mulch is the most important component to a healthy landscape," says Putnam, "It feeds the plants as it breaks down, keeps the roots moist, suppresses weeds, cools in the summer, and warms in the winter."

After a plant's blooming season is over, don't be afraid to let some spent flowers stay on. "Spent flowers are a super way to add color and interest in the winter garden," says Putnam, "Also, spent flowers and grasses offer food and cover for birds and overwintering pollinators."