From the opening of the first spring snowdrop to the last autumn aster, gardeners strive to keep their gardens beautiful and interesting all year long. There may be a week during the growing season when even the best garden slips into a lull. But it's possible to create a garden that performs virtually nonstop throughout the seasons, including winter, when many plants are at rest.
This section explores strategies for decking each season with color, fragrance, and form, from early spring until winter shrouds the garden in muted shades. The constants of this quiet season will be plants with interesting forms or textures that look good even when dormant, evergreens whose subtle golds, greens, or burgundys contrast with wheaten shades of dormant perennials, and a few winter bloomers whose fragrance and color foretell spring.
But while the garden is actively growing, the reliable elements will be flowering plants that bloom over and over, tying spring, summer, and fall together. Week after week, these plants become the crucial background players for perennials and shrubs, which are chosen for succeeding bloom times so that you can enjoy nonstop, if short-lived, bursts of color.
Think beyond blossoms, and plant for foliage harmony. Daylilies and irises, for example, are popular because they put on a show-stopping floral display. But they also enliven the garden from spring to fall with handsome, strappy leaves, which rise from the ground like green fountains. Also consider the subtle, season-long beauty of plants with colored or variegated leaves, which can brighten shady spots that are inhospitable to flowering plants.
When searching for multiseason plants, we have not only considered flowers, but also foliage, fruits, seed heads, fall color, bark texture, and winter silhouette. It's these subtle attributes of the care-free plants featured in this chapter that will step out to transform an ordinary garden into a showplace of four-season beauty.
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