Creating Interest During Four Seasons in the Garden: Landscaping Learnings Pt. 2

Another topic I learned about in my landscaping classes was how to create interest in the garden. This can mean adding varieties of plants that provide food for birds. It also means adding shrubs with colored branches, finding plants with bright colored berries, or leaving leaves and rose hips on after the fall freeze.The plant above is an Oak Leaf Mountain Ash which has leaves that are shaped beautifully and turn yellow in the fall, and have an added bonus of bright berries for interest and food for birds. The honeysuckle creates interest in the fall with the leaves transforming to yellow allowing the red berries to stand out even more.
The cotoneaster plant is a keeper for any garden. It grows quickly, has berries that draw birds and adds color, and it grows with little water or care! Now that is my kind of plant. You can divide them, propagate them, and even start them from the seeds in the berries if you are patient.Holly is always a popular plant in a bed because it does stay green in the winter causing the berries to stand out, plus it is there under the snow waiting to be harvested for holiday decor.

In another month these plants will be the showstoppers in the garden along with the shrubs that lose their leaves allowing them to show off their branches. These shrubs include the dogwood willow with its red branches and other plants with yellow branches. As we move through fall it gives this gardener more to look forward to. I have found this is a good time of year to plan for your next year's garden plantings. You can observe patterns, sizes and shapes that have changed due to growth or death, and where the holes are for color and texture.Sweet William added garden interest by showing up on the fence during the photo tour.