Paul Roper-Gee from Canopy Landscape Architects has some practical tips for creating a garden that looks great all year round.

Winter can be a quieter time in our gardens but that provides an opportunity to plan ahead and think about how the garden can look good in all four seasons. In garden design, as well as three-dimensional space, we can also play with the fourth dimension of time.

In the winter months the ‘bones’ of the garden become obvious. Hard landscape elements including paths, pergolas, walls and boundaries provide structure that remains important throughout the year. Evergreen plants including New Zealand natives provide strong form and texture that give a garden weight and provide a backdrop to set other ‘flashier’ plants against. The winter skeletons of trees, ornamental grasses and selected perennials can also provide ‘good bones’.

Gardens need not be static but can change and flex through the seasons, taking advantage of plants that have their ‘wow moment’ at different times of the year.

To set up a moving wave of colour and interest from spring through to the following winter, succession planting is one of the best ways to make the most of ‘time’ in your garden. Flowers and perennials are your allies. Understanding when plant species will be in flower and which plants can be layered together in the same space is important. Bulbs give the garden a head start in late winter and get it rolling into spring. Perennials and annual plants can then be combined so that as one flower fades, another is flourishing and ready to take its place. Late season flowers can take you right through into autumn, by which time the autumnal leaves will take centre stage.

Planning good structure together with a succession of changing foliage and flower will create a garden for all the seasons.

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