When thinking of a perfect landscape I imagine it to have something blooming or “showing off” during each season. This can be easily achieved by choosing foundation plants that will shine at different times of the year and by planting perennials and seasonal annual color in your landscape.

Remember foundation plants are the shrubs that make up the main foundation of your landscape and are mostly evergreen (keep their leaves year-round). Not all plants bloom at the same time of the year, so take advantage of this and choose plants that add color in different seasons. Spring and summer are the easy seasons to find plants blooming, fall and winter are a bit trickier. Here’s a list of plants that either bloom in fall/winter or add color to your garden with brightly colored berries or foliage.

Some fall and winter bloomers are:

‘Sweet Autumn’ Clematis – climbing vine covered with white flowers

Camellia Sasanqua – varieties in all colors bloom from October through December

Reblooming Azaleas (Encore®, Bloom-A-Thon®) – blooms in spring, summer and fall

Beautyberry – Bright purple colored berries cover it’s long arching branches in the fall

Viburnum Brandywine – dark maroon foliage in autumn with vivid pink and blue berries

Hybrid Tea Roses – bloom in a variety of colors in spring and in fall

Drift® Roses– bloom from spring until early winter

Knock Out® Roses– bloom from spring until early winter

Gardenia – aromatic white flowers that bloom in spring and again in the fall

Pyracantha – a large growing shrub covered with orange/red berries from fall through winter

Loropetalum – pink, red or white blooms cover the length of the branches of this burgundy leafed shrub

Sweet Olive – extremely fragrant small white blooms from fall through the winter.

Camellia Japonica – blooms in a variety of colors from January through March

Nandina Firepower – it’s green summer leaves turn to yellow/orange colors of fall followed by a brilliant flaming red that last through winter.

Including some of these shrubs in your landscape will help brighten your garden on those cold wintry days.