Plants that look great all year round are essential if you want a garden for all seasons. While you might not be sitting outdoors much in the winter, it is still important to create interest. After all, you might have a conservatory or garden room where you can relax and enjoy the view!
There are plenty of flowering plants that will add a splash of colour in the autumn and winter, as well as plants that continue to shine all year, with attractive foliage and berries in different seasons. Read on for our guide to some plants that look great for more than one season.
Nandina Domestica
Nandina Domestica is an evergreen plant. It will flourish in sun or shade and isn’t fussy about soil type. In spring, the leaves are a soft pink, shortly followed by white flowers. By summer, the leaves have turned green, then in autumn, the leaves turn red and the plant produces bright red berries. It is a most attractive plant that will brighten up any garden.
Camellia
Camellias are a lovely flowering plant. Add camellias to your borders or grow them in planters. The humble camellia only flowers in the spring, but the leaves stay green and glossy all year, so it will add a touch of green to bare areas in the bleak mid-winter.
Aucuba Japonica
If you need an evergreen hedging plant, Aucuba Japonica is a great choice. This evergreen shrub has lovely green and yellow speckled leaves, which stay green all winter and are very eye-catching. It will grow thick and verdant if trimmed into shape along a boundary, which makes it an excellent addition if you want a low-maintenance hedge that offers plenty of privacy. By the time this shrub has reached maturity, it will be about 10 feet tall.
Lavender
Lavandula x intermedia ‘Grosso’ is an excellent variety of lavender if you want some pretty winter foliage. Unlike some varieties of lavender, this one is more evergreen, with lovely silvery foliage. Like all lavender, it makes an excellent edging plant for pathways and borders, but it will continue to look good well into winter. Come spring, you will be rewarded with pretty purple flowers.
Blueberries
Blueberry plants are a great addition to the garden if you want to harvest their delicious berries, but the plant also looks attractive for most of the year. Blueberry plants produce white flowers in the spring before the berries appear. By autumn, the plant’s leaves turn rich shades of red, for a blast of fiery colour.
Witch Hazel
The witch hazel plant flowers in late winter and early spring, when the rest of the garden lies dormant. The golden flowers of hamamelis x intyermedia Aphrodite witch hazel exude a lovely scent and are a nice addition to the garden on a warm spring day. By the time autumn comes, the leaves will slowly turn red before falling.
Crab Apples
Let’s not forget about the humble crab apple. These are well suited to smaller gardens and are great for attracting wildlife. Crab apple trees produce pretty pink or white blossom in the spring; the exact shade will depend on which variety you plant. By summer, your tree will be laden with red crab apples, much to the delight of squirrels and birds. In autumn, the leaves will change colour and eventually fall.
Choose the Right Plants
Look for plants, shrubs, and ornamental trees that flower, produce fruit, or have attractive foliage at different times of the year. If you get the planting right, you will have points of interest all year round.
