Landscape for Year-Round Interest

ron williams building winston-salemWhen you’re building a new house, sometimes the last thing you think about is the landscape. A few boxwood shrubs and a good planting of grass for the lawn usually suffices to get you move-in ready. But with a few carefully chosen plants, you can have a front yard that will impress your neighbors and provide year-round interest in the landscape.

* Flowering dogwood. There’s a reason why this plant is designated the state flower of North Carolina. Its beautiful blooms brighten up our spring season, and they bloom enough after the threat of frost each year that you don’t run the risk of early blooms turning brown with a late, hard freeze. The tree comes in varieties that have both pink and white flowers, and red leaves in the fall with red berries that persist through winter make it a year-round favorite.

*Southern Magnolia. This tree is the epitome of southern landscapes. In addition to the waxy green leaves that hang onto the tree all year long, there are also big blooms that give off a lemony scent in the spring and pods full of bright-red seeds that form on the tree in the fall.

* Beautyberry. Why plant a shrub that just provides evergreen leaves? Beautyberry provides a great green accent to your garden in the summer, and in the fall and winter the leaves drop off and clusters of bright-purple berries appear.

* Nandina. This plant is an old-fashioned staple to southern yards that has come back into fashion again. The shrub grows somewhat like bamboo, putting up new shoots from the bottom as it spreads. It’s an evergreen plant, but the leaves still have a life cycle of their own, starting out pink with new growth and turning red as they age. The plant also has berries that start out yellow in the late summer and turn to bright red by fall.

All of these plants will thrive in Winston-Salem area landscapes. Just be sure to dig a hole at least twice as big as the original pot when planting, and water regularly the first year until the roots are established.

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