Planting Guide For Year-Round Colour
Does your garden look its best in the summer, but struggle to meet the same standards in other seasons? Many homeowners struggle with maintaining the vibrancy of their outdoor space throughout the seasons, causing their garden to become lacklustre and unkempt once the summer warmth has faded. While this is a common issue, it does not have to be an ongoing one as there are ways to ensure year-round colour in your garden.
As a leading landscaping company, Beautiful Spaces understands what it takes to maintain an attractive garden throughout the year. From planting choices to ongoing maintenance, we have what it takes to ensure your landscape thrives no matter the weather, and want to arm you with the same knowledge.
In this post, we are sharing a seasonal planting guide to provide year-round colour in your garden, so you can enjoy a vibrant landscape at all times.
Why Is Year-Round Colour Important?
Creating a garden that offers colour year-round can be extremely beneficial for homeowners and is a great way to maximise the potential of your outdoor space.
By making careful planting decisions and keeping on top of seasonal maintenance, you can ensure your garden looks great at all times of the year to experience benefits such as:
- Better Kerb Appeal: When your garden looks great all year round, you can enhance the kerb appeal of your property and ensure it always makes a good impression on visitors or passers-by, no matter the season.
- Biodiversity: Plants and flowers play a role in local ecosystems, providing fuel for pollinators and habitats for wildlife. By ensuring your garden is vibrant throughout the year, you can continue this support and remain an active role in local biodiversity.
- Personal Enjoyment: Having a garden you love can be an amazing lifestyle boost and a great way to bring joy to the everyday. Brighten up each season, whether it’s a hot summer’s day or a grey winter evening, by having colour in your garden design throughout the year.
How To Ensure Year-Round Colour In Your Garden: A Seasonal Planting Guide
To experience these benefits for yourself and ensure your landscape looks amazing no matter the season, you need to plant for the weather. Each season brings new opportunities for colour and growth, and this can be used to your advantage with careful planning.
It is possible to ensure your garden remains attractive and vibrant all year round, not just in spring and summer, by planting for the season, such as:
Spring: Awakening To Seasonal Blooms
Spring is one of the easiest times to plant for colour, as many flowers begin to bloom during this time of the year. This means your garden will organically be full of colour and textures, simply due to the natural patterns of most plants. To take full advantage of this season and ensure your garden looks its best, consider plants such as:
- Bulbs such as daffodils, tulips, and crocuses, which bloom early in the season and have stunningly vibrant flower heads
- Flowering shrubs, such as forsythia and magnolia, for a beautiful balance of flora and foliage
To ensure year-round colour and prolong the appeal of your spring garden, you may want to consider layering bulbs in autumn. Planting early in the year ensures that your garden will come to bloom at the first signs of spring, and give you less to do when the time comes.
Likewise, deadheading flowers when they reach their full blooms in the spring or summer, such as daffodils which bloom early, can prolong the appeal. With effective deadheading, you can ensure that your flowers return next year and will be a reliable source of colour in your landscape.
Summer: Bold And Bright Flowers
Summer is the most vibrant season of the year, offering colour not only across our gardens but with the weather. The longer days and warmer temperatures make summer an ideal time to get outdoors, and you can make this more enjoyable by planting seasonal blooms such as:
- Perennials such as rudbeckia, echinacea, and salvia will return to your garden each summer, offering their bold petals and creating stunning seasonal displays
- Annuals like marigolds and cosmos can be a great way to add more colour to your garden during the summer and will thrive until the season is over
A great way to maximise year-round colour during the summer is through container planting and hanging baskets. Container planting not only makes it easier to care for your outdoor space, as soil conditions can be controlled and erosion is avoided, but is also flexible enough for all-sized landscapes.
Whether you are limited on space or simply want a versatile display to match the season’s events, container planting allows you to add year-round colour to your garden in a way that suits you best.
Autumn: Warm Tones And Textures
While most gardens begin to wind down during the autumn, there is still plenty of colour to be enjoyed during the season. Autumn can be a season of rich hues and jewel-toned leaves if you make the right planting decisions, such as:
- Trees and shrubs that produce seasonal foliage, such as Acer, Dogwood, and Cotinus, provide year-round colour through their foliage, which later explodes into warm tones during the autumn for a final boost
- Late-blooming flowers such as asters and sedum prolong the vibrancy of your garden and give you something to look forward to as the rest of your flower beds begin to fade
- Ornamental grasses add height and texture to the garden, providing movement in the autumn winds and prolonging the appeal of your planting displays. These are ideal for raised planters or contemporary garden designs
To ensure that your garden continues to thrive in the autumn and offers year-round colour, maintenance is a key factor at this time. As the leaves begin to fall, make sure to keep your planting spaces clear to avoid rot or drainage issues.
Winter: Subtle Beauty And Evergreen Structures
Winter is not typically a vibrant season, but by planting specifically for year-round colour, it can be. While most plants and trees enter their dormant phase during the winter, there are still ways you can keep your landscape colourful and attractive this season, such as:
- Planting evergreens such as boxwood, holly, and yew, which keep their green leaves all year round and ensure structure in your garden no matter the season
- Consider alternative forms of colour such as silver birch bark, berries or winter-flowering shrubs such as hellebores, which can be used across your landscape for year-round colour
Your planting options may be more limited in the winter when searching for colour, but there are other ways to ensure year-round colour. Winter is a great time to rely on hardscaping, such as colourful natural stone or gravel patios, and garden lighting.
Lighting in particular is a great tool for winter as it will add warmth and colour to your garden on the long, dark nights. With lighting, such as colourful fair lights or stake lanterns, your space remains attractive and festive throughout the season.
Top Tips To Ensure Year-Round Colour
As well as seasonal planting, there are certain design tricks you can use to ensure year-round colour in your garden, such as:
Choose plants with staggered bloom times to create colourful planters and prolonged colour in the garden without ongoing maintenance
Mix evergreen and deciduous trees and shrubs to provide a variety of structure and seasonal colour based on the time of year
Use containers and focal points to fill in the gaps across your garden in between seasons and ensure that every corner is covered
To ensure that your garden remains an attractive landscape in every season, consider working with professional landscapers like Beautiful Spaces. We offer garden design, landscaping, and garden maintenance throughout the year to bring out the best in your outdoor space. Our team will deliver personalised care and design a space that meets your needs, no matter the season.
Conclusion
To experience the benefits of year-round colour in your garden, rely on seasonal planting to prolong displays and blooms. Using a combination of flowers, shrubs and trees, you can ensure that each corner of your landscape is engaging at all times of the year and you can be proud of your home.
For additional support and advice, work with professional landscapers like our team to experience year-round care. Our team delivers maintenance, design, and landscaping services throughout the seasons and is ready to take on your next project.
Contact Us Today
To learn more about what we do or to request a quote, please contact the team today.
FAQs
Can I create a colourful garden in a small space?
Yes! There are various ways you can ensure year-round colour in small landscapes, such as with container planting, vertical displays, and layering.
Do I need to replant every season?
Not necessarily, as perennials, bulbs, and evergreen shrubs return every year. These are an ideal solution for those seeking a low-maintenance way to provide year-round colour.
When is the best time to plant for year-round colour?
Autumn and early spring are the best times to plant most bulbs and shrubs, but you can begin planning and designing any time of the year to get a head start.
