When it comes to deciding upon trees to use in your landscape design, it’s important to remember that you’re dealing with different growing conditions in each season. By choosing trees according to their seasonal appearance, you can ensure that your landscape remains colourful and interesting throughout the year. For some ideas about the top landscaping trees for all seasons, we’ve put together this list.
Spring
Spring is a time for colourful flowers and blossoms. Choosing trees that produce brightly coloured flowers in the spring is a great way to welcome back the warm weather and do away with any leftover winter doldrums.
Apple Trees
Apple trees are great for the spring because of their large, colourful blossoms. You might not even care whether the fruit is edible after being greeted by apple blossoms each spring. Crab apple trees are also known for their colourful spring blooms.
Cherry Blossoms
Cherry blossom trees are another welcome sign of spring right across the country. The delicate pink flowers clustered in the tree branches are some of the most photogenic tree blossoms in existence.
Summer
Summer is a time when shade is welcomed. But just because a tree is providing shade doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be beautiful.
Japanese Maple
Japanese maple trees are special because they exhibit traditional fall colours in the summer. Their bright red leaves can create a great contrast to all the greenery that it’s surrounded by in the warmest months of the year.
Fall
Fall is when many trees become their most beautiful. As the trees slow down their chlorophyll production in response to the weather, green gives way to yellows, oranges, reds, and browns.
Sugar Maple
Because of their size, sugar maples provide plenty of shade in the summer. But it’s in the fall that they fully come into their own with a bright flourish of colour. Sugar maples are the most iconic autumn tree in North America and having one or more in your landscape will allow you to experience joy even as summer slips away.
Winter
The rainbow of colours typically gives way to a more monochromatic look in the winter, but your choice of trees can help prevent everything from becoming too black and white.
Blue Spruce
These evergreen trees will ensure you have some colourful contrast to the browns, blacks, and whites that are typical for winter. Their bushy needles provide much-needed greenery with a slightly blue hue to remind you that there are still some living plants even in the coldest weather.
