All year round plants for garden


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.

2. Mountain Ash

(Sorbus)

My father’s favorite tree, the Mountain Ash maximizes space with beauty. It is also a treasure trove for wildlife.

3. Birch

(Betula)

A notable winter tree known for its bark; it shares many beautiful features throughout all seasons.

4. Maple

(Acer)

Maple trees bring flare and drama to each season with their famously giant lobed leaves.

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!

6. Spruce

(Picea)

Potentially another underrated superstar of plants with year-round beauty, Spruce trees, and shrubs have gorgeous surprises throughout the year.

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.

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.

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.

10. Boxwood

(Buxus)

We plant Boxwoods for their formal and utilitarian uses. However, this is exactly why they are exceptional all year long!

11. Yew

(Taxus)

The keen observer will already know that beyond Yew’s evergreen shaping and pruning tolerance, it also shows several seasonal spectacles.

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:

  1. Poppy
  2. Echinacea
  3. Lavender
  4. Sea Holly
  5. Globe Thistle
  6. Stonecrop
  7. Rosemary
  8. 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.

  1. Blue fescue
  2. Feather reed grass
  3. Switchgrass
  4. Blue oat grass
  5. 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.

Winter Gardening - 10 Plants That Look Great Year-Round

Winter Gardening

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If you live in an area of the country with harsh winters, you may be resigned to a dead and dreary yard and garden during the cold months. But it doesn’t have to be that way. There are plenty of plants that look great all season long, even in the northernmost reaches of the country. Check out our favorites, and see if you can get some of these cold-weather wonders in the ground before winter’s chill sets in.

istockphoto.com

Blue Ice Bog Rosemary

2/12

Blue Ice bog rosemary's unique silvery-blue foliage looks good in all seasons, but this evergreen ground cover also delights with a shock of pink bell-shaped blooms in early spring. Perfect for rock gardens and moist soils, it will attract birds and bring interest to the yard all year long. 

Related: 7 Popular Ground Covers to Enhance Any Yard

istockphoto. com

Carsten’s Wintergold Mugo Pine

3/12

This dwarf pine variety turns from green to gold when cold weather arrives. In fact, the colder the climate, the more intense its color becomes. Deer-resistant and easy-care, this shrub will look good in every season in Zones 2 through 7. 

Related: 10 Plants Sure to Stop Deer in Their Tracks

amazon.com

Weeping Norway Spruce

4/12

Many weeping ornamentals lose their leaves in cold weather—but not the weeping Norway spruce! With its unusual shape and showy cones, this evergreen makes a great accent in the garden and provides rich green in all four seasons.

Related: 10 of the Best Trees for Any Backyard

flickr.com via F.D. Richards

Tiny Buttons Stonecrop

5/12

This evergreen succulent creates a lush and attractive carpet that thrives year-round. Small white flowers attract butterflies in early summer, and the plant's blue-green foliage may take on a reddish hue in colder months. Easy to care for in full sun, this little wonder packs a lot of life in its compact height.

istockphoto.com

Siberian Carpet Cypress

6/12

For evergreen ground cover in cooler climates, try one of the Siberian carpet cypress varieties. These short and colorful shrubs turn a coppery purple in winter, greening up again when warmer weather arrives in spring. 

Related: The Invincible Yard—12 Ideas for Lazy Landscaping

istockphoto.com

Frosty Fire Dianthus

7/12

This ground-hugging variety of dianthus is evergreen and cold hardy in Zones 2 through 8. Its gray-green foliage erupts in summer with flowers, making it a wonderful filler both in the garden or in pots. 

Related: 10 "Zero Dollar" Garden Hacks

istockphoto.com

Dwarf Globe Blue Spruce

8/12

If you’re looking for a distinctive shade of evergreen color, dwarf globe blue spruce delivers. Hardy in Zones 2 through 8, this densely branched little conifer has blue needles that become more brilliant in summer. It makes a wonderful low hedge, but it's even more outstanding when planted in combination with different species. 

Related: Living Fences—11 Boundary-Setting Solutions

monrovia.com

Pink Pussy-toes

9/12

Adapted to Zones 2 through 9, pink pussytoes provides an evergreen mat of tiny silver-gray leaves. In late spring, it spikes deep pink, fuzzy flowers. It’s a slow grower and requires little water once established, so this cold-hardy beauty is a breeze to care for in any season. 

Related: 5 (Nearly) Kill-Proof Houseplants

monrovia.com

Snowdrops

10/12

Snowdrop bulbs are happiest with cold or moderate winters. Plant the delicate white flowers in the fall and enjoy them throughout the cold months, come spring they'll go dormant.  

istockphoto.com

Christmas Rose

11/12

Christmas rose, a variety of hellebore, is a pest-resistant evergreen perennial. Find it a shady location with space to grow, and soon you'll be noticing its white flowers. 

istockphoto.com

Liven Up the Landscape

12/12

With planning, your yard can look great year-round.

bobvila.com

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Shade-tolerant plants for the garden selection with photos ⋆ blumgarden.ru

Unpretentious shade-tolerant plants tend to get by with a small amount of sunlight in the morning or afternoon. Absolute shade is a serious problem in choosing garden plants. And yet, look here for a selection of beautiful shade-tolerant perennials for flower beds. Examples of live photos of flowers from the garden, detailed characteristics, description. You can buy the plant you like - put it in the basket and place an order.

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Top 20 Perennial Flowers for the Garden

Spring Perennial Flowers

Spring flowers tend to bloom quite early, but also bloom before summer. Therefore, when planting spring varieties, you need to take into account the end of their flowering and select a replacement.

Crocuses

Crocuses are planted both in groups, combining different colors, and individually - they perfectly enliven the lawn.

These flowers bloom quite early - in March, peeking out from under the snow, and bloom until the end of May.

Photo: Instagram allakorobcko

Photo: Instagram innamankos

Photo: Instagram landscape_samara

Muscari

Muscari, or mouse hyacinth, has an oblong stem dotted with small bluebell-like flowers. These flowers are quite unpretentious and grow well in the shade of trees.

Muscari blooms from April until the end of May.

Photo: Instagram egaidel

Photo: Instagram inna.rozonutaya

Photo: Instagram skazkileta

Pushkinia

This spring flowering perennial has large white flowers with blue veins. It will be a good neighbor for daffodils and primrose.

Pushkinia blooms from April to May.

Photo: Instagram irinatolubenko

Photo: Instagram svetlana_pakhomenko

Photo: Instagram tatiana.davydova_kositsyna

Tulips

Flowers very popular with summer residents. They are quite unpretentious, although they require regular watering during flowering.

These flowers have a large number of species and different flowering periods, but on average they bloom in suburban areas from April to the end of May.

Photo: Instagram ababashirina

Photo: Instagram chaudharyjulia

Photo: Instagram gamsmari

Daffodils

Narcissus flowers can be with a short and long crown, simple and double. They grow well both in the sun and in the shade, but they do not like excessively damp soil. Poppies, peonies and aquilegia can be planted next to them so that after the end of the flowering of daffodils the site does not seem bare.

The flowering time of daffodils is from the beginning of April to the end of May.

Photo: Instagram arina_radionovna

Photo: Instagram jukiazhgun

Photo: Instagram olesyamagersidelnikova

Dicentra

There is a legend about the flowers of this beautiful plant. It says that in France there lived a girl who once got lost at night in the forest. She was saved and brought home by a mysterious rider, which won her heart. But a few days later she saw him marry another, and her heart broke and turned into a dicentra flower.

Blooming dicentra looks beautiful both in a group and singly.

This plant blooms during May with bright pink, white and bicolor flowers.

Photo: Instagram dom_s_rozami

Photo: Instagram dom_s_rozami

Photo: Instagram dom_s_rozami

Lily-of-the-valley

A wonderful decoration for a May flower bed is small snow-white lily-of-the-valley flowers spreading their fragrance over the entire plot. This plant tolerates wintering well and is quite unpretentious. It can grow in one place up to 10 years and feels good in the shade.

Lily of the valley blooms in May, then white flowers give way to red berries.

Photo: Instagram for_home_and_soul

Photo: Instagram katusha_sablina80

Photo: Instagram red_lilu

Brunner

Brunner has small blue flowers and unusual pointed heart-shaped leaves.

It is better to plant a brunner in the shade, it blooms in May, and with its foliage pleases until frost.

Photo: Instagram annaprosiannikova

Photo: Instagram samarinaav

Photo: Instagram sergei.nemo

Kupena

This plant will be a wonderful decoration of the summer cottage both because of its bright blue flowers and because of the lush leaves of unusual colors. It does without a transplant and grows rapidly in an empty shady corner.

Kupena blooms from May to June.

Photo: Instagram tosya_vk

Photo: Instagram skazkileta

Photo: Instagram olgavrozhkova

Periwinkle

Periwinkle, or magic violet, is a shade-loving plant that grows rapidly, creeping along the ground, and blooms with small blue, pink and white flowers.

Periwinkle blooms from May to mid-June.

Photo: Instagram 85solnce

Photo: Instagram dar_krylova

Photo: Instagram shakalovagalina

Summer perennial flowers

Summer varieties are planted to replace spring flowers so that the plot will please the eye with flowers throughout the summer season.

Arabis

Arabis is a good choice for those who do not want to plant a large number of successive flowers on the site. Arabis spreads along the ground and has a large number of leaves, so it completely covers the ground and does not require the neighborhood of other flowers.

Begins to bloom in April and blooms until frost.

Photo: Instagram landshaft.design

Photo: Instagram multya

Photo: Instagram semena_zakaz

Doronicum

The bright and saturated flowers of Doronicum will be a wonderful decoration for the garden. At the same time, it should be borne in mind that when they fade, the greenery will also fade, so it’s worth planting a decorative fern nearby so that the site is not empty.

Doronicum blooms from mid-May to June.

Photo: Instagram nik_ilsen

Photo: Instagram tosya_vk

Photo: Instagram ludmilas_gomel

loosestrife

loosestrife comes in two types: creeping and with tall stems ending in large inflorescences. These inflorescences have large flowers of various shades. In addition, loosestrife is frost-resistant and practically not subject to the threat of pests.

Flowering time - from May to the end of June.

Photo: Instagram art_flora_krsk

Photo: Instagram best_family_garden

Photo: Instagram sad_yulia

Roses

There are several varieties of summer roses that are especially popular with summer residents.

Golden Elsa

This variety of roses reaches a height of 70 cm and has pale orange flowers. It has a pronounced pleasant aroma and is suitable for hot climates.

Blossoms twice for three weeks: in mid-July and mid-August.

Photo: Instagram mirrasrenii. ru

Anniversary of the Prince of Monaco

Two-tone roses that turn white in the shade, and in the sun the edges of the petals acquire a crimson hue. They tolerate rain well and are frost-resistant.

Blooms from May until frost.

Photo: Instagram hozyaistvo_gazeta

Red Leonardo da Vinci

This variety of roses is very unpretentious and resistant to rain and diseases. The flowers are quite large - 8 cm in diameter - and last 2 weeks.

Blooms from June to late August.

Photo: Instagram dom_s_rozami

Bathing suit

The bright yellow bathing suit flowers have a pleasant aroma and, due to their long stems, can become a kind of hedge.

The bathing suit blooms in May and with regular watering will bloom until the second half of summer.

Photo: Instagram gorodu_net

Photo: Instagram maltcevaolga56

Photo: Instagram samarinaav

0002 Geranium blooms with small beautiful flowers, constantly replacing each other.

And even after the end of flowering, it still copes well with a decorative role due to its carved and rich green leaves.

Like all descendants of wild plants, geranium is unpretentious and grows in the shade.

Geranium blooms from May to the end of summer.

Photo: Instagram irina_posev

Photo: Instagram kvitka_sadu

Photo: Instagram vale4ka2206

Aquilegia

This perennial plant comes into bloom immediately after tulips and daffodils.

Bizarrely shaped bright flowers remain on it from May to September. But even when they fall, aquilegia decorates the site with purple leaves.

Photo: Instagram bel_ladonna

Photo: Instagram florida_by

Photo: Instagram oscar_and_sher

Turkish carnation

Turkish carnation has bright flowers with jagged petals, but rather small in size. Therefore, it is better to plant it quite tightly.

It begins to bloom in late spring and ends in September. Another advantage of this plant is the ability to reproduce by self-seeding.


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