Landscape color excites or soothes as it draws the eye and engages the mind. Showy deciduous trees display brilliant color with foliage, flowers or fruits. Colorful blooming perennials command seasonal attention, then bow out while evergreens contribute year-round interest. A variety of permanent trees, shrubs and perennials, suited to local climate conditions, create a colorful landscape framework. Bulbs and annuals provide bright, transient accents.
Small, Colorful Landscaping Trees
Japanese maple trees glow in spring and fall with crimson, purple or yellow foliage; summer leaves come in various greens. The plants may take the form of shrubs or single-trunk trees. Numerous cultivars include some suitable for container cultivation. Sitka mountain ash trees, western natives from Alaska down through California, offer showy flowers and brilliant autumn foliage. Birds relish the pretty, scarlet berries beginning in late summer. Serviceberry trees, also western natives, display pinkish or white spring flowers, sometimes among the deep-purple new foliage. Colorful summer berries attract birds. Lush green summer leaves give way to blazing autumn color.
Camellias, viburnums, forsythias, rhododendrons and lilacs explode with spring color. New lilac varieties, including the Descanso hybrids, perform in mild-winter regions. Continuous-blooming shrub roses, including easy-care miniature roses, display long-season color in airy, sunny spots. Fuchsias, thriving in moist, cool-summer, low-frost climates, attract hummingbirds over a long season with their exotic, showy blooms. Northwest U.S. native vine maples brighten shady woodlands with brilliantly colored, ever-changing foliage. Dwarf varieties of yew, holly or Italian cypress, in greens or yellows, punctuate the landscape with soothing, evergreen color.
Widely adapted clematis, with more than 200 species and hundreds of cultivars, produce vertical floral displays in blues, purples, pinks or whites. Clematis vines grow companionably among climbing roses, creating spectacular flower shows with contrasting or harmonizing colors and concurrent blooming times. Some climbing roses, including Lady Banks and some old garden roses, expend their flowering energy in a single-season floral extravaganza. Continuously blooming climbing roses, on the other hand, produce flowers over a long season. Passion vines, South American natives in several varieties, are brilliant color accents for no- or low-frost areas.
Bulbs, Rhizomes and Annuals
Spring-blooming bulbs include tulips, hyacinths, daffodils and some irises; most require a period of winter chill. Colorful summer-blooming lilies potentially establish permanent clumps in a range of flowering habits and climate adaptability. Especially colorful gladioluses, dahlias, anemones and some irises grow from rhizomes, requiring little or no winter chill, naturalizing in suitable climates. Annuals create a colorful statement for one season. Spring and winter pansies; petunias for spring, summer or fall; and impatiens for shade are locally available at appropriate planting times.
- Skagit County Extension Washington State University : Trees for Fall Foliage
- Sunset Western Garden Book; Kathleen Norris Brenzel, et al.
- University of Illinois Extension: Our Rose Garden
- Sunset: Mild-Climate Lilacs
- Sunset: Star Performers -- Plants That Do Great in the Northwest
- Hemera Technologies/Photos.com/Getty Images