Your garden should be a year-round enjoyment and you should design it to reflect that. Many trees and shrubs offer multi-seasonal attraction. Several years back I designed a series of walking paths to network through my garden to capture its 12-month natural beauty.

Planning next year’s garden? Look for calendar gaps in your own landscape and what plants fill that gap of time. Choose an outdoor site where the seasonal enjoyment can be viewed from inside your home. For example, plant Japanese maples, flowering dogwoods and cherries, summer flowering hydrangeas and Rose of Sharons (Hibiscus syriacus), and fall-winter flowering camellias and colorful holly berries within view from a patio window so you may enjoy it seasonally from inside the warmth of your home in winter.

On a frigid wintry day, curl up with a good book indoors while staring out a window at the vee-branch architecture of a clump river birch or crape myrtle, the mid-winter flowering Chinese paperbush (Edgeworthia) that may be enjoyed all four seasons. During February-March, vernal and Chinese witchhazels are blooming; winter aconites (Eranthis) and snowdrops (Galanthus) are in flower, and daffodils, crocuses, and other bulbs are poking through.

What about planting trees and shrubs with brightly ornate fruits over the fall and winter seasons. ‘Winter King’ hawthorn (Crataegus viridis) or winterberry holly (Ilex verticillata) are loaded with ruby red fruits. Plant a tree with attractive winter bark such as redtwig dogwood (Cornus stolonifera), flowering cherry (Prunus x yedoense), or paperbark maple (Acer griseum) nearby a window to be viewed from indoors on a cold or snowy winters day. How about the gray muscular bark of native hornbeam (Carpinus carolinana) or the vertical architecture of ‘Slender Silhouette’ sweetgum.

Enjoy your garden 12-months a year. Invite nature indoors by filling vases with dried flower heads from hydrangeas, various perennials, or ornamental grasses to decorate a table or mantle. How about trekking through the winter garden with hot chocolate in hand. Construct a series of walking paths made from wood shavings, pine needles, chat (fine gravel), or 16-18 inch concrete squares.