All season garden plants
20+ All-Year-Round Plants That Look Stunning In Every Season
Plants that share beauty and interest year-round maximize precious garden real estate.
Perennials, trees, shrubs, and even annuals that look stunning year-round give the best bang for your gardening buck.
Trees with elegant branching frosted in the snow are a magnificent sight in winter. However, a blossoming crabapple in spring, followed by glossy leaves in summer, brightly colored fruits in fall, with elegant snow-frosted branching in winter is an all-out year-round superstar in the plant world.
On top of their prized flower show, many perennials, annuals, and ornamental grasses spread their glory throughout the year with lovely foliage and interesting seedheads that persist throughout the winter seasons.
Excitingly, plants with year-round interest partner nicely with the explosive seasonal spectacles of many plants such as lilacs, tulips, forsythia, magnolia, and garden mums.
Evergreen Cedar trees, for example, make an exquisite year-round backdrop to masses of cotton candy plumes of Rhododendron.
And Rhododendron in and of itself is multiseasonal with its thick, paddle-shaped, evergreen foliage.
While stunning year-round plants might not get the celebrity notoriety of seasonal spectaculars, their form and function create interest during every season.
What Is So Interesting?
Color, form, and flowers certainly add to a plant’s desirable traits.
Plants that make living birdfeeders. Yes, that sounds interesting. However, plants that provide nesting, nectar, and nuts bring entertaining wildlife to the garden throughout the seasons.
Shrubs that burst with fragrant foliage all year round. Yum! Sounds stunning too.
Blooms that turn into brightly colored berries add multi-season color and charisma without taking up a lot of real estate.
Trees and shrubs with graceful barren winter branches that erupt with lovely large leaves in spring, changing dramatically yellow, orange, and red in fall.
Now, these are plants that feature stunning year-round interest.
The winter season is, of course, the biggest challenge for year-round interest. Fortunately, many trees and shrubs have bold, vibrant, or interesting bark, hold on to their colorful fruits, or have super-early bloom times.
Don’t forget, an evergreens’ beauty only improves upon itself. Whether as a backdrop for seasonal color or dusted in frost on the chilly long days of winter.
Here is our list of plants that add interest and intrigue to the garden all year long.
11 All-Year-Round Plants (+ Bonuses) That Look Stunning In Every Season
Trees
1. Crabapple
(Malus)Crabapples are at the forefront of plants that are stunning all year round.
- Spring: Glossy foliage, giant fragrant buds, and blossoms that are an early nectar source for birds, bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds. Need I say more?
- Summer: Crabapple trees are often pruned lovingly into spectacular shapes to best show off their colorful blooms and fruits.
- Fall: As Crabapples mature their foliage takes on their autumnal shades while the fruits deepen in color to attract many birds.
- Winter: Standout shapes with ongoing fruits and feathered foragers are even more pleasant in winter.
2. Mountain Ash
(Sorbus)My father’s favorite tree, the Mountain Ash maximizes space with beauty. It is also a treasure trove for wildlife.
- Spring: Creamy white flat clusters of blossoms in spring are framed by the delicate feathery compound leaves.
- Summer: The intricate leaflets form an excellent contrasting backdrop to the large bright orange clusters of berries in summer.
- Fall: Nothing short of spectacular, the distinctly fern-like compound leaflets seem inwardly lit in bold orange.
- Winter: A favorite winter scene, a myriad of winter birds feasting on Mountain Ash berries. These berries noticeably contrast beautifully against the snow.
3. Birch
(Betula)A notable winter tree known for its bark; it shares many beautiful features throughout all seasons.
- Spring: Icicles are quickly replaced with the dangling catkins from towering birches.
- Summer: Rich, deep green leaves dangle and dance all summer from wispy birch branches.
- Fall: As the sky turns gray and the rains begin, Birch leaves shine in bright yellows, an ode to crisp autumn days.
- Winter: A symbol of winter’s serenity, the papery, peeling stark white bark with contrasting dark horizontal slits.
4. Maple
(Acer)Maple trees bring flare and drama to each season with their famously giant lobed leaves.
- Spring: With a bloom time that is easily missed in early spring, lasting about a week only. The subsequent winged Samaras are often colorful and abundant.
- Summer: From intricate deeply lobed colorful leaves to giant, plate-sized leaves, Maple’s extravagant foliage varieties are a summer pleasure.
- Fall: Oranges, reds, and yellows, oh my! The quintessential autumn tree with remarkable inspiring colors.
- Winter: The structure and form of maples dressed in ice and snow, while lovely, can be complimented even more with paperbark varieties for even more seasonal drama.
5. Cedar
(Cedrus)Sure, an evergreen is an evergreen. Not so fast! Brightly colored new growth, seeds, cones, and flowers, in addition to graceful branches, are smothered in blankets of white. What is not to love, all year round!
- Spring: The scale-like leaves of cedar glow with illuminated tips at the end of each branch in spring.
- Summer: For the keen observer, the Cedar shares intricate, tiny flowers and odd-looking pollen capsules throughout summer.
- Fall: The perfect stately backdrop, Cedar also has unique cones nestled in its stoic branches.
- Winter: Drooping dense branches cascade in flattened sprays offering necessary green relief for gray and white days.
Coated with ice and snow, the Cedar branches’ intricate structures are more pronounced.
6. Spruce
(Picea)Potentially another underrated superstar of plants with year-round beauty, Spruce trees, and shrubs have gorgeous surprises throughout the year.
- Spring: Not to be missed, emerging Spruce cones arrive in a brilliant show of pinks and reds.
- Summer: Late spring to early summer the luscious new growth at the tips of Spruce branches is particularly stunning.
- Fall: Dangling like ornaments, Spruce cones are tightly layered in shades of green.
- Winter: Spruce trees are seemingly built to handle snow and look good while they are at it!
Shrubs
7. Roses
(Rosea)Our rose obsession with color, flower form, and the fragrance is not diminished when we recognize the multiseason interest roses provide in the garden.
- Spring: Glorious burgeoning leaves, buds, and blossoms.
- Summer: Glossy complex serrated leaves often with a plethora of repeat blooms.
- Fall: Ranging in yellows, oranges, and reds, rose leaves show wonderful autumn foliage.
- Winter: Rose hips keep their bright red color through winter while providing a feast for winter birds.
8. Red Osier Dogwood
(Cornus sericea)Red Osier Dogwood is famously adored for its bright red branches in winter. It also fills the year-round beauty checklist with blooms, berries, and attractive burgundy fall colors.
- Spring: Large, flat, cream-colored clusters of tiny bee-attracting flowers are framed perfectly by smooth deep green leaves.
- Summer: Flower clusters form bunches of bluish-white berries that are prized by many kinds of birds.
- Fall: The smooth deeply veined leaves turn a stunning polished burgundy and persist on branches long into autumn.
- Winter: Red Osier Dogwood is most famous for its vibrant red branches that are spectacular against white and gray winter landscapes.
9. Rhododendron
(Rhododendron)A miraculous spring-blooming family of plants, many Rhododendron and Azalea varieties have giant paddle-shaped evergreen leaves that are stunning in every season.
- Spring: Breathtaking vibrant green leaves frame the masses of burgeoning buds.
- Summer: Massive clusters of flowers in almost every conceivable shade nearly obscure the leaves of Rhododendrons at bloom time.
- Fall: Depending on variety and climate, many Rhododendrons take on gorgeous fall colors as the temperatures drop.
- Winter: A dusting of frost and snow shows off the stunning forms and structurally interesting leaves of Rhododendrons.
10. Boxwood
(Buxus)We plant Boxwoods for their formal and utilitarian uses.
However, this is exactly why they are exceptional all year long!
- Spring: Emerald jewels emerge as healthy spring growth smothers intricately shaped and loosely trimmed boxwood shrubs.
- Summer: A favorite and fulfilling garden chore, Boxwood shrubs and hedges love being shaped and pruned.
- Fall: The immaculate evergreen capacity of Boxwood makes them perfect contrast shrubs to accentuate fall color.
- Winter: Delicate, intricate foliage of Boxwood is ever more intriguing frosted with ice and snow.
11. Yew
(Taxus)The keen observer will already know that beyond Yew’s evergreen shaping and pruning tolerance, it also shows several seasonal spectacles.
- Spring: Yew’s new spring growth is luminant with large chartreuse candles.
- Summer: Male and female Yews each produce different flowers in late spring, males are globe-like structures, and female flowers are cone-like.
- Fall: Female Yew produces bright-red fleshy berries. The flesh is eaten by birds, but the seeds are poisonous and not eaten.
- Winter: Along with the sculpted structure of Yew, the berries are also decadent when draped in snow.
Perennials
Plants that are good for drying are also notably good for leaving in the landscape for year-round beauty. Many perennials love being pruned in fall for tidiness and disease prevention. However, leaving unique seedheads, sturdy structures, and fragrant foliage in place gives you more time to enjoy your stunning perennial plants.
Stunning perennials that look great all year round are:
- Poppy
- Echinacea
- Lavender
- Sea Holly
- Globe Thistle
- Stonecrop
- Rosemary
- Salvia
Annuals
Annuals that make interesting seedheads or have a sturdy form can be stunning throughout the year. As much as tidying the garden in fall may include removing and composting annual plants, keep an eye out for those that might look stunning throughout the winter.
Moreover, in warmer climates, annuals may stay productive or at least colorful much longer than we anticipate. Leaving them in place until spring breaks might give us something to admire through the gray days of winter.
Ornamental Grasses
Here is a sample of ornamental grasses that look good all year.
Depending on your climate and landscape, many ornamental grasses are stunning in spring, summer, fall, and winter.
Delightful seed heads dancing in summer breezes may be equally inspiring frozen in time with dustings of frost. A good indication for grasses that look good all year are ones that you prune back in spring.
- Blue fescue
- Feather reed grass
- Switchgrass
- Blue oat grass
- Prairie dropseed
Well-chosen trees, shrubs, perennials, annuals, and ornamental grasses can maximize your precious garden real estate. These plants will give you the best bang for your gardening buck while looking stunning all year round.
All Season Flower Gardens - Designing Year Round Gardens
Home › Special Gardens › Garden Spaces
Garden Spaces
By: Susan Patterson, Master Gardener
Image by krblokhin
While planting a garden is not an overly taxing chore, planning for a four-season garden takes a little more thinking and organizing. Designing year-round gardens ensures that your home is surrounded by color and interest through all four seasons.
Year-Round Garden Planner
Before beginning your garden, create a year-round garden planner where you can identify the plants that will bloom each season in your garden. A planner will not only help you keep track of what you have planted, but it will also allow you to add garden notes or other thoughts as well as pictures.
How to Create a Four-Season Garden
Designing year-round gardens simply begins with choosing appropriate plants for your region. Depending on where you live, you can use any combination of perennials, annuals and container plantings for these all-season flower gardens.
Although it is somewhat easier for gardeners in the South to accomplish a variety of color all season long, northerly gardeners may achieve interest and color year round as well by implementing plants with interesting foliage or other features.
The key to a successful year-round garden is to know which species do best in your region and understand when their display is greatest. To create balance in your four-season garden, it is best to choose at least two types of plants that will flower together during each season.
Four-Season Container Gardens
In addition to all-season flower garden, you can also choose to create four-season container gardens. These are a great alternative for those living in cooler climates. Containers are also an excellent way to add color to your garden all year long.
Containers offer a flexible solution for using annuals or can be a great home for attractive evergreen or perennial plants. Spring-blooming bulbs can be mixed with summer and fall-blooming plants in a mixed container display that provides color well into the cool season in most areas.
Four-season container gardens can also provide the option of changing your plantings with each new season.
Plant Suggestions for Designing Year-Round Gardens
Although your choice of plants will vary depending on your region and the amount of sunlight your garden receives, these suggestions of seasonal plants will give you an idea of what a four-season garden may look like. It is always best to choose native species when you can, and if you need help deciding on which plants to select, you can contact your local Cooperative Extension Office for help.
Spring Plants
Fill your spring section of your garden with flowering bulbs and other spring-blooming plantings for a burst of color following a long winter. These may include:
- Tulip
- Crocus
- Snowdrop
- Daffodil
- Peony
- Pansy
Forsythia and other spring-blooming shrubs provide spring color for larger landscape areas.
Summer Plants
There is a wide variety of summer-blooming flowers that have excellent blooming power.
While far too extensive to list, some of the more common choices may include:
- Daylily
- Coneflower
- Zinnia
- Nasturtium
- Black-eyed Susan
- Bee balm
- Rose
- Gaura
- Hydrangea
Fall Plants
Fall favorites for all-season flower gardens include:
- Asters
- Ornamental grasses
- Mums
- Hardy begonias
- Ornamental kale
- Flowering cabbage
- Pansy
- Sedum
Winter Plants
While the southerly gardener can enjoy a host of color during the winter, including such plants as the hardy camellia, northerly gardens benefit from such plants as evergreen hollies, firethorn and chokeberry bushes that have lovely berry displays all winter long.
Very early bloomers like snowdrops and hellebores can even tolerate some snow and frost and are commonly seen popping up on a snowy day towards the end of winter.
This article was last updated on
Read more about Garden Spaces
Did you find this helpful? Share it with your friends!
You might also like…
Garden plants on the open balcony in winter: mission possible?
EventsIdeasUseful little thingsGarden decorsLandscape designOtherTips
29.
01.2018
Landscape design
Russian winter leaves little space for gardeners to express themselves. Of course, during this period, it remains possible to temporarily switch to indoor floriculture, in particular, the creation of plant compositions in flowerpots on city balconies and loggias.
nine0002 Let's say right away - there are few solutions for the cold season, there are many difficulties. Even if you manage to choose frost-resistant plants that can grow well in pots in winter, alternating snowfalls and heavy rains threaten to negate the entire decorative effect of landscaping an open balcony.
Yet true gardening enthusiasts are up for the challenge! We have selected plants that can decorate an unglazed balcony in winter. So it is quite possible to create a frosty oasis that will not lose its charm even under a layer of snow. nine0003
Important! The vast majority of winter hardy plants do not tolerate stagnant water in the ground.
Therefore, task number 1 is to choose the right pots for the balcony. It should have thick walls and good water and air permeability characteristics. Additional insulation of the pot inside will not hurt either. Terracotta and ceramic pots and planters are best suited, but glass and metal are best left until warmer times.
Heather
Of course, heat-loving indoor flowers on the balcony will not survive, but some types of plants tolerate winter conditions well, retaining their beauty and decorative effect. For example, heather is an evergreen perennial with a lilac-purple color that contrasts beautifully with white snow. In a garden in winter, heather requires shelter, as it is adversely affected by excessive moisture during thaws. But the atmosphere of the city balcony is quite to his liking - it is enough to transplant a heather bush into a planter and provide a "roof over his head." nine0003
Ornamental cabbage
Ornamental cabbage is a new favorite of landscape designers and gardeners in Russia.
Unpretentiousness, frost resistance and expressive leaves that become brighter with the onset of cold weather make it an excellent solution for decorating a balcony. Ornamental cabbage easily tolerates transplanting into a container, winters well outdoors without additional insulation and is an excellent "companion" for decorative compositions in flowerpots. nine0003
Conifers and evergreens
The classics of winter gardening of a balcony in our latitudes are evergreen trees and shrubs. Dwarf spruce, pine, thuja, cedar in large pots will not only improve your view from the window, but will also become the basis for stunning Christmas compositions. Conifers in flowerpots, some snow and a couple of garlands are a traditional recipe for a good mood in winter.
Euonymus
nine0002 Euonymus is an evergreen shrub or tree, the main decoration of which is bright leaves that turn into various variations of pink, crimson and purple.
Pleasing with unusual shades and fruits-boxes, which sometimes persist until the very frost. Many varieties of euonymus feel comfortable at a temperature of -35 0 C - however, only in the garden. When planted in a flower pot, the frost resistance of the plant decreases, although they are still able to withstand a small minus. nine0003
Hellebore
A beautiful winter flower that can live in a pot on a balcony up to -10 0 C. Its natural flowering starts in November and ends in spring. Expressive snow-white flowers look spectacular in flowerpots, as well as in bouquets and decorative compositions with dried flowers and moss. In severe frosts, the plant "hibernates" and looks frozen, but this impression is deceptive - the hellebore simply draws moisture from the buds to prevent them from freezing. To protect the flower from frost and temperature changes, it is recommended to cover the plant with coniferous spruce branches. nine0003
Outdoor balcony garden in summer
It is not a problem to decorate a balcony with plants in the spring and summer period - many plants grow well on an open balcony in the warm season.
Dwarf trees in large pots, flower arrangements on the windowsill, climbing and liana-like plants falling from the brackets for hanging planters - the balcony can be turned into an urban “garden branch” (and we will definitely devote a separate article to this issue!). nine0003
If you are lucky enough to be the owner of an openwork balcony with a wrought iron railing (the so-called "French balcony"), you can place hanging flower pots outside. Such balconies are often found in buildings of the 19th century on the old streets of Moscow and other large cities. By planting spectacular fuchsias or decorating the lattice with a winding cascade of ivy, you can create a spectacular accent on the facade and collect a lot of pluses in karma from aesthetes, tourists and connoisseurs of atmospheric urban details. nine0003
Note! If you are looking for a gift for home gardeners, take a look at houseplant gift set from the English brand Burgon & Ball in association with the Royal Horticultural Society.
Unsurpassed quality and original design of tools and accessories have been the choice of British aristocratic gardeners since 1730!
All-season decorative garden shrubs. A million plants for your garden
All-season ornamental garden shrubs. A million plants for your gardenWikiReading
A million plants for your garden
Kizima Galina Alexandrovna
Contents
0This text is an introductory fragment.
nine0106 Garden plants garden plants What new do I offer when growing horticultural crops? Yes, do what nature does with its perennial plants.
Doesn't dig up near-trunk circles either in autumn or spring, doesn't remove the dead above-ground part of everything that is under bushes and trees
Fruit trees and shrubs
Fruit trees and shrubs Fruit trees are watered as follows. 3–5 year old plants require 50–80 liters per irrigation, and 7–10 year old plants require up to 150 liters. Older trees require more water. You can determine the quality of irrigation by the condition of the soil. At
9.1.2. Shrubs
9.1.2. shrubs Dogwood (Cornus) Shrub or small tree up to 9 meters high. Area - Southern Europe, the Mediterranean, the Caucasus. It grows in mountain forests, among bushes, on forest edges, on rocky ground. Fruits are used fresh and dried. From well-roasted seeds
Garden roses
Garden roses In terms of beauty and duration of flowering, pleasant and delicate aroma, roses occupy the first place among ornamental plants.
This flower is a favorite of many nations. The Hellenes dedicated the rose to Eros, the god of love, and Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty. The Queen of Flowers,
Garden roses
Garden roses In terms of beauty and duration of flowering, pleasant and delicate aroma, roses occupy the first place among ornamental plants. This flower is a favorite of many nations. The Hellenes dedicated the rose to Eros, the god of love, and Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty. The Queen of Flowers,
Berry garden plants
Berry garden plants This group of fruit plants is very conditional. It, in fact, includes all plants that do not fall into the categories of "pomaceous" and "drupaceous". But if in those groups there was a fairly definite sign - the type of fruit, then in the group of "berry" plants
Trees and shrubs
Trees and shrubs White acacia At the beginning of the story about this plant, we recall that such well-known ornamental plants as yellow and white acacias, in fact, are not directly related to genuine acacias.
Real acacias (there are about 800 species)
Trees and large shrubs
nine0002 Trees and large shrubs Aralia Brief description. Aralia high, or Manchu, - Aralia elata (Miq.) Seem. (Aralia mandshurica Rupr. et Maxim.) – multi-stemmed deciduous tree or large shrub from the Aralia family, 2–5 m high (up to 8 m) with a shallow rootShrubs and semi-shrubs
Shrubs and subshrubs Warty euonymus Brief description. Warty euonymus - Euonymus verrucosa Scop. - a shrub from the euonymus family with a well-developed root system. Stems up to 2 m. Sometimes this shrub for some reason becomes
Chapter 4 Shrubs, decorative all summer
Chapter 4 Shrubs, decorative all summer Aralia (Aralia) This is a large shrub not for a small garden. Its long (4 m) thorny branches easily cling not only to a support, but also to clothes, so planting aralia should be in a spacious place, in the sun or in partial shade.
