Love Your Landscape – November 2018

I love the change of seasons and the distinct characteristics that each season brings. The Rogue Valley experiences beautiful contrasts and beauty during each season of the year.

Your landscape can offer a variety of colors, textures and features during each season. From short-flowering periods in the spring and early summer, to late-blooming flowers during the fall. A landscape that is enjoyed throughout all the seasons doesn’t just happen—it has to be planned, thought through and executed. A well-designed landscape can offer visual interest all year round, even in the heart of winter.

As winter approaches, your landscape will rely less on color and more on form and structure to give it visual appeal. Evergreens become more dominant and deciduous trees and shrubs bring more structure. Trees and shrubs with colorful barks that flake and peel can reveal patterns along trunks and stems. Berries can also add winter interest and attract birds.

A well-designed landscape can enrich your surroundings with eye-catching flowers from ground covers to tree crowns. I’ve found that succession planting can help ensure there is something in bloom from spring through fall. In the spring, newly-emerging foliage marks the transition out of winter and each day can reveal a new change in the appearance of a garden. Shrubs, the filler plants of the landscape, create mass and structure as they bloom in the spring. And let’s not forget all the fragrant flowers and foliage that brighten the ever-changing landscape of a four-season landscape. A number of summer flowering plants can attract butterflies to your landscape, as well.

If you are planning a new landscape, you’ll want to consider both the outdoor space you are working with, and the style of your home. Most likely, you’ll want to plan your four-season landscape so it creates interest whether it’s viewed from inside of your home or from the outside. Here in the Rogue Valley, we have many plant options for planting a stunning landscape with four-season interest. All landscapes are a work in progress and continually change and grow, and planning ahead a well-designed landscape will bring enjoyment for years to come.