10 Tips for Four-Season Gardens

February 17th, 2015

When I help home gardeners plan improvements to their landscape and ask them about their most important goals, one that almost always rates at the top of the wish list is four-season interest.

Most people these days are looking for landscapes that change with the seasons and look good in all.

Most people really want a yard these days that changes with the seasons and looks good in all of them.

Maybe it’s because we’ve had milder winters lately or are just more interested in better gardens in general. But whatever the reason, four-season interest is a solid trend.

It’s also something a lot of people aren’t sure how to tackle. So many yards tend to look nice in spring, then go downhill from there.

I think a big reason for that is that our yards are full of “one-season wonders” – primarily May-peakers because that’s what looks the best (and is on sale) when the huge bulk of gardeners do their plant-shopping, which is the second Saturday of every May.

Converting to a four-season look isn’t terribly difficult, but it takes some rethinking and some homework.

Here are 10 tips to help you do that:

1.) Add more variety. Plant more plants and different kinds of them. You’ll get multi-season change and interest just by dumb luck. Even when planting a particular species, choose several different varieties for their varying bloom times and diversity.

2.) Make a conscious effort to plan for all four seasons. If you prefer something more planned than the above “buck-shot” approach, think what each part of the yard will look like in each season and seek out plants that will add interest to those boring gaps. Or make notes during the course of this season to help with upgrades the following one.

3.) Move beyond 2-week wonders. Many of our over-used favorites are one-dimensional plants that peak only for a few weeks out of the whole year (azaleas, rhododendrons, lilacs, peonies, forsythia, burning bush, for example). If your yard is too heavy with those…

4) Look for hard-workers – plants that do more than one thing in one season. Example: oakleaf hydrangea, which blooms white in late spring, gets burgundy foliage in fall and then shows off peeling bark when the leaves drop for winter.

5.) Pay attention to leaf color, especially in plants that hold their foliage over winter. Blooms are fleeting, but colorful leaves and needles add interest much longer… and maybe all year long.

Creeping sedum ‘Angelina’ is an example of a plant with great leaf color all year long.

6.) Don’t plant-shop only in May. You’ll tend to buy only what’s looking good then… or on sale. Shop in different seasons. Make it a point to go whenever your yard is looking particularly barren.

7.) Visit public gardens. They’re great for getting ideas and seeing what’s doing what at any given time. Visit these in different seasons, too.

8.) Pay attention to what other people have planted. If you see plants nearby doing something interesting at a time when your yard is snoozing, find out what those plants are and add them to your list.

9.) Don’t overlook the “hardscaping.” These are the paver walks, the stone walls, the arbors, the fences, the benches and the other non-plant features of the landscape. Not only do they add structure or “bones” to the look in season, they’re at their best in winter when most plants are off stage.

Attractive hardscaping is at its best in winter.

10.) Add dedicated seasonal gardens. One option is to mix plants of varying interest times in all of your beds throughout the yard. But if you’re still not sure that’s going to get the job done – or if you don’t like that approach – plan for different gardens that peak in different seasons. Then load up each of those gardens with plants at their best in each assigned season.

As for homework to get all of that done, here are some helpful resources:

* The “Nonstop Color Garden” by Nellie Neal (Cool Springs Press, $24.99 paperback, 2014). This photo- and illustration-rich book teaches how to design with and use color in the landscape – and especially how to keep it going from season to season. About half of the book is devoted to profiles on some of the most colorful plants.

* “The Nonstop Garden” by Stephanie Cohen and Jennifer Benner (Timber Press, $19.95 paperback, 2010).

This book focuses specifically on four-season designs and is divided into four parts: how to design a garden of mixed plant types for all-season interest, picking the “main attractions” (trees and shrubs), picking the supporting cast (bulbs, vines, perennials, annuals and edibles), and adding finishing touches (containers, structures and garden accessories). It also offers 10 design plans for garden themes, such as a native-plant garden, a scented garden, a garden for wet sites, a winter garden and a shade garden.

* My chart of What Blooms When in Central Pennsylvania, which lists bulbs, perennials, trees, shrubs and vines by their peak bloom times.

* My article on “Hard-Working Plants,” which features some of the best choices of plants with multiple-season interest.

* Two plant-picking publications I’ve written. One is my new book called, the “Pennsylvania Getting Started Garden Guide,” which profiles 170 of the best plants for central-Pennsylvania landscapes. The other is my 18-page detailed list called, “George’s Survivor Plants for Central Pennsylvania,” which goes into plant specifics right down to sizes, best cultivars, light needs, exact bloom times and more.

The first is $24.95, and the second is a $5.95 download (or $7.95 print copy), both available on my Helpful Info page.

* My Plant Profiles page, which is an archive of more than 300 plants with photos, suggested good partners, care tips and more.

If all of that fails, I do Garden House-Calls throughout the growing season to help you on site with planning… or to do scale drawings if you’d rather just have me tell you what to do.