A Seasonal Planting Guide For Year-Round Colour And Interest
A beautiful garden isn’t just for summer – while this season may be the best time of year for your outdoor space, with some careful planning, you can ensure colour all year round.
Seasonal planting focuses on the best of each season to prolong the visual appeal of your garden. Although spring and summer are traditionally the most successful seasons for gardeners, there are ways to ensure your garden continues to look amazing even in the colder months.
As leading landscapers, Green Acorn Landscape Design understands what it takes to create a colourful outdoor space throughout the year. Whether you are an avid gardener or a beginner looking to create an engaging outdoor space throughout the year, this seasonal planting guide is sure to help.
Seasonal Planting Guide: What To Plant For Year-Round Colour
It is possible to maintain a colourful and attractive outdoor space, regardless of the season. With careful planning and creativity, you can ensure that each season brings new visual appeal to your garden.
With a focus on seasonal planting, each season brings new opportunities to create a stunning outdoor space, such as:
Spring Planting Guide: Kickstart The Growth
Seasonal planting in spring means focusing on new growth and the early signs of life that come with the warmer weather. After the cold, dark days of winter, spring brings with it early blooms and little pops of colour to signal the changing of the seasons.
By planning ahead or getting to work early in the season, you can ensure your landscape begins to come alive in spring by planting:
- Bulbs: Flowers such as daffodils, hyacinths, and crocuses are often the first signs of life during spring and offer early blooms. They add colour and begin to attract pollinators, making them ideal for flower beds, borders or container planting.
- Perennials: For returning colour in your garden, consider perennials such as lungwort, primroses, and hellebores. These bloom beautifully during the spring and summer, and will return each year for more. With the right care and attention, perennials can become a staple of your seasonal planting displays.
- Flowering Shrubs: For something different, or those seeking more structure in the garden, consider flowering shrubs. Shrubs such as forsythia and rhododendron produce colourful flowers during the spring and can be used to define boundaries, create structure or privacy screening in the garden throughout the year.
To ensure you get the best colour and visual appeal in spring, it is best to plan ahead and start planting bulbs in the autumn. This gives them plenty of time to establish ahead of the changing seasons and offer early blooms as soon as the weather changes.
Summer Planting Guide: Colourful Showstoppers
As the weather gets warmer and the days get longer, seasonal planting in the summer focuses on maintaining vibrancy in the garden. Many seasonal plants also provide support to pollinators and wildlife, attracting bees and butterflies to your garden to make it come to life this season.
Most plants reach their peak blooming phase during the summer, meaning there is plenty of opportunity for colour and fragrance, with options such as:
- Perennials: Like in spring, perennials remain a staple of summer seasonal planting as they add colour and fragrance to planting areas. For summer colour and lasting scent, choose hardy perennials like lavender, salvia, and rudbeckia, which can continue to bloom until the autumn.
- Climbers: Ideal for small gardens or those who want to add vertical interest, climbing plants such as roses and clematis bloom beautifully during the summer. These climbers can be trained across fences or garden walls to add colour to all areas of the garden.
- Containers: Container planting is a great way to make gardening easier, as well as allow flexibility in your garden design. Placed across patios and decking, or used on windmills and balconies, summer flowers such as geraniums, petunias, and trailing lobelia are ideal for a colourful season.
To ensure your summer remains colourful and that flowers will return next year, deadheading is vital during this time of year. Deadheading should be done as soon as flowers start to fade to conserve energy.
Autumn Planting Guide: Rich Hues And Lasting Beauty
While a lot of plants begin to slow down their growth in the autumn, and most gardens become duller, this can still be an incredibly vibrant season with the right seasonal planting choices.
Autumn planting aims to bring warm hues and rich colours to your garden and prolong the appeal of your outdoor space as long as possible with options such as:
- Late Bloomers: Although a lot of flowers slow down in the autumn, some continue to bloom and provide colour late into the year, such as asters, sedum, and chrysanthemums. When paired with other perennials and plants in flower displays, you can prolong the appeal of your garden well into the autumn.
- Shrubs: A great way to add structure and screening to your garden, shrubs also provide colour during the later months of the year. For unique appeal and lasting greenery, consider options such as pyracantha and cotoneaster.
- Trees: Although a lot of trees begin to lose their leaves, and therefore the main source of colour during the autumn, options such as acers (Japanese maples) and dogwoods offer rich hues in red and pink through their flowers, branches, and leaves.
To get ahead on gardening and make sure your landscape is colourful come the new season, start planting during the autumn. While also making your autumn ruch and vibrant, you can also begin to plan for the new gardening year by planting new shrubs, bulbs, and trees in this season. Planting in autumn allows plants to establish roots ahead of the frost and grow healthily.
Winter Planting Guide: Structure And Lasting Appeal
Although a lot of people do not associate winter with colourful landscapes, it is possible to keep your garden interesting during this season. While a lot of plants enter their dormant phase during this season, some continue to bloom or provide colour in unique ways.
Winter is a great time to focus on lasting structure and neat garden design so your landscape is ready to be used once more in the new year. Some of the best seasonal planting options for winter include:
- Evergreens: Evergreen shrubs maintain their leaves all year round, offering greenery and structure throughout the season. To ensure your winter garden is attractive and neat, consider evergreen shrubs such as boxwood, conifers, and holly.
- Winter Flowering Plants: Although a lot of plants stop growing in the colder months, some produce flowers in the later seasons, such as hellebores and winter jasmine. These are a great way to add colour to your winter garden and ensure you have something new to look forward to at the end of the year.
- Textural Plants: As colour is not the main appeal of your winter garden, focus on other aspects such as unique textures. Plants such as dogwood stems and ornamental grasses allow you to create layered displays and ensure unique variations across the garden, which continue to be appealing even in the depths of winter.
As winter is a slower month for gardeners, despite the options for seasonal planting, it is a great time to plan ahead. Winter gives you enough space to plan your future garden and get ready for the new year.
Whether you want to experiment with more forms of seasonal planting in the new year or go for a complete garden renovation, winter gives you time to plan it out and receive quotes from landscaping companies.
Conclusion
Seasonal planting is a great way to keep your garden interesting and colourful all year round. With careful planning and unique planting choices, you can maintain the visual appeal of your garden throughout the year. Working with the organic rhythms of each season creates a unique and engaging landscape that always has something new to offer.
To ensure your garden is ready for the seasons ahead or to get more advice regarding seasonal planting, work with professional landscapers like Green Acorn Landscape Design. We are a leading garden design company that offers a range of services throughout the year to bring out the best in your landscape. From winter maintenance to spring planting, we are here to help.
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FAQs
Does seasonal planting work in small gardens?
Yes, seasonal planting is suitable for all kinds of gardens as long as you plan accordingly. For small gardens, container planting and vertical interest are the best ways to add colour without overwhelming the limited space.
When is the best time to plant for year-round interest?
Autumn and spring are key planting seasons, but you can begin seasonal planting at any time of the year to ensure interest next season or enjoy the current time of year in style.
What’s the easiest way to maintain plants in my garden?
To create a low-maintenance garden, choose hardy perennials and apply mulch or compost in planting areas. These maintain soil moisture, suppress weeds and provide essential nutrients to plants without any extra work.
