How to Plan Your Landscape Design for Year-Round Appeal
When most people start thinking about how to beautify a backyard, they tend to think in terms of plants for the warm summer season, when they’ll spend the most time enjoying their outdoor spaces. However, this strategy can leave your Sioux Center, Iowa yard looking a little lackluster for the other nine months of the year, even if you install eye-catching hardscaping elements to compensate.
How can you get the gorgeous backyard you’ll enjoy looking out on even during the colder months? Here are a few tips for planning a landscape design that offers year-round appeal.
Spring: Grass and Daffodils
After a long winter of gray skies and freezing temperatures, there’s nothing more exciting than seeing the first green shoots of spring peeking up through the blanket of snow on the lawn. You’re going to crave color, as well as the buzz of bees and the twitter of birds, so you want to plan for these sights and sounds with a lawn that will come back full and lush in the spring, as well as bulbs like tulips and daffodils that will quickly burst forth in a riot of colors as soon as the air begins to warm.
Summer: Foliage and Blooms
This is the season when you’re going to spend the most time outdoors, lounging in your pavilion, hosting evening parties in your outdoor kitchen, and generally enjoying the balmy weather. You want to make sure you’re surrounded by greenery that provides plenty of shade and privacy from prying eyes, as well as the visual appeal and intoxicating scents that attract both people and wildlife like birds.
Your landscape design specialist can help you to choose the hearty trees, shrubs, and flowering plants that will lay dormant through winter, but turn your summertime garden into a veritable oasis of greenery and flowers during the summer months. The combination of lush foliage and colorful blooms will dazzle the senses and provide the privacy you want for long days spent in the sun and long nights celebrating with loved ones.
Fall: It’s All about Leaves
Autumn is the time of year when nature is in decline. As Robert Frost put it, “leaf subsides to leaf”. Even in this slow death, however, there can be beauty, and nothing is more associated with fall than the turning of leaves. With just a few deciduous trees installed in your yard, you can revel in the golds, oranges, reds, and purples that punctuate this stepping stone to winter as you sip apple cider and sit by your fire pit to enjoy the chill of fall.
Winter: Bark, Berries, and Evergreens
Your Rock Valley, Iowa yard can look pretty barren in winter if all you have is dead grass hidden under a mound of snow. However, with simple planning, you can turn your yard into a winter wonderland punctuated by textured bark, forest greens, and even bright spots of red courtesy of bushes featuring winter berries. It will take some forethought and help from your landscape design specialists, but with the right plants in place, you can enjoy your beautiful backyard in every season.