To me, an effective landscape design is one that you can enjoy all year round and looks good from all angles—even inside your home! Here are some key concepts I like to keep in mind whenever I’m designing a landscape to maintain four seasons of interest:
One of my favourite design techniques is to use zones and rooms in my landscapes. Even if all you have is a super simple garden layout, take a second to look at it from inside your home. Where are you? Where are your biggest vantage points? Walk through your home and look out your windows into your landscape. What’s outside when you’re in your kitchen or your home office? What do you see when you’re looking out your patio doors, and how does that compare to the wider viewpoint of your landscape when you step outside? Each of these views is a frame you’ll want to fill for all four seasons. By breaking your landscape down into these vignettes, you suddenly make the rest of your design process much easier and more manageable!
You also don’t need a ton of space to accomplish a lot in your landscape. While a large yard does afford you more options and possibilities, this range of choices can be overwhelming for many, and can sometimes actually make designing your landscape more difficult. A smaller, well-designed landscape can be just as effective as a larger one, and is usually much easier to manage.
When it comes to greenery, my general rule of thumb is that landscapes should be 30(ish) percent evergreen. People generally tend to “poopoo” evergreens at this time of year because there are so many other pretty things to look at. However, we need to remember that we have four to six months of nothing waiting for us every winter, so planting for that empty period from November to early April is crucial if you want a truly four-season landscape. Your evergreens are the backdrop for your seasonally rotating plants, such as deciduous trees, perennials, and annuals. Plus, trees are an excellent sound barrier, so having evergreens in the background of your landscape will help keep your home and garden peaceful and enjoyable throughout all four seasons.
Another one of my favourite design tips is to layer your garden elements so that your small, medium, and tall features all come together in dynamic displays that look stunning in all four seasons. This practice is both simple and incredibly effective, and is similar to how you’d lay out an annual planter with the classic thrillers, fillers, and spillers method:
Start by picking out your thriller plants to ensure you have a nice focal point. I personally find that specimen plants, like large evergreen or deciduous trees and shrubs, make excellent thrillers. Next, select shorter plants that perform in different seasons than your thrillers as your fillers. Choosing plants with gorgeous colours and blooms will ensure your garden maintains a four-season visual appeal. Finally, use ground covers or short perennials as your spillers, the lowest layer of your display. Your spiller plants should also perform at different times than your previous layers to keep things interesting no matter the season.
This layering technique also works incredibly well in smaller gardens, where you may only have a limited number of plants to work with. In these instances, look to incorporate other elements—such as neighbouring trees extending over your fence or hanging baskets and planters—into your layered designs to make the most of your limited area. Remember: in a small space, every single plan becomes that much more important!
Using sculpture in your garden is a great way to fill in your vignettes and change things up as you pass through all four seasons. Try moving your collection of pots and planters around season by season to create slightly different views and moods. Think of them like couch cushions—arranging them a little differently every so often is a quick, easy way to refresh your space.
Experimenting with different textures in your garden is another great way to create different feels for each of the four seasons. Play with shiny versus matte planter finishes, put a mirror in the back to play with light, or add a water feature to make your space feel bigger.
Now that you know what to look for, give your existing landscape a colour audit at the start of each of the four seasons. If you stand on your patio right now and all you see is green, you’ll probably want to add a bit of colour! If you don’t have roughly 30% evergreens in your landscape, consider planting some before winter so that you’ll still have some nice colour and texture to gaze upon while you’re nice and cozy indoors. It’s not too hot to plant, so feel free to visit us and discover some new plants that can fill the gaps in your landscape.
For more advice and inspiration for your four-season garden, visit us at Royal City Nursery. We’d love to help you curate a landscape you can enjoy all year round! If you’d rather leave all the hard work to someone else, no problem! Reach out to our landscape team at Royal City Nursery’s Landscape Solutions for more information on our complete landscape services.
