Great Ideas for an All-Season Garden

Bronze and green colors, seasonal flowers, and permeable paving keep this Bainbridge Island garden beautiful year round.

Click through our slide show for planting ideas and more ideas for your own all-weather landscape.

A 'Fireglow' Japanese maple adds punch in front of native alders and Western red cedars, while silver-green brunnera (B. macrophylla 'Jack Frost') grows at its base. Golden oregano and Japanese forest grass fringe the path nearby.

Rainfall burbles down a lightweight galvanized aluminum chain (from rainchains.com), then spills over a rock and drains into an open-bottom catchment basin, where it replenishes groundwater.

Frost-proof stoneware containers add hits of color throughout the landscape. Those in the garden are empty, while those by the door are planted with yellow groove bamboo and hellebore.

Both the multicolored flagstones set in sand and the ¾-inch granite gravel allow rainfall to pass through to plant roots. River rock edges the planting beds.

Blooms come and go all year amid the foliage; they include yellow-flowered sedums in a low bowl here, plus blue-flowered brunnera, chartreuse Euphorbia characiaswulfenii, and hydrangeas in beds.

Design Tish Treherne, Bliss Garden Design