Using Color to Enhance Your Landscape

Any great landscape has many different elements creating the overall appearance.  You need size in the appropriate areas, different textures across the plant selections, focal point areas, and of course color.  Color is often the driving force behind a landscape renovation or initial design for a new home.  It makes or breaks the landscape.  Some areas call for large splashes of color and others just need a little to tie the landscape together.  Many people associate a colorful landscape with one that requires a lot of maintenance, which is largely untrue.  The use of low maintenance perennials, new hybrid roses in an assortment of colors,  as well as hydrangea provide colorful areas that do not require a full time gardener to flourish year in and year out.  Another misconception is that most plants that provide color are deciduous and don’t have any winter interest.  While this is true in some varieties there are many evergreen options that offer a variety of colorful foliage throughout the year including evergreen Nandina cultivars, Blue Junipers or Spruce, Lorapetelum,  and ornamental grasses in dormancy can add color in the colder months  when used correctly.  Whether you plant in mass or tastefully accent the landscape, color will make big impacts for you next landscape project.