Three ways to bring colour into your garden

Fabulous foliage

For length of display, leaves are hard to beat. Many plants have incredibly coloured foliage that brings vibrancy to your garden for months on end. Like the Foliage Garden at RHS Garden Rosemoor some will offer colour all year round, while others will flush different colours at different times of year.

Foliage brings vibrant and long-lasting colour to gardens

Try combining different patterns and shapes, for example in the photo above, begonias look amazing in combination with coleus (Solenostemon). Both these plants will grow really well in shady gardens and give you months of colour in summer and autumn. For plants that can live in the garden all year round, see our 10 groundcover plants with beautiful leaves.

Brilliant blooms

Many brightly-coloured flowers are easy to grow and are great for bees and other pollinators

Perennials are a good bet for creating colourful displays – try old favourites such as crocosmias and rudbeckias for a reliable splash of colour year in, year out. Annuals

Annuals are plants that complete their life cycle in one growing season. They are generally easy to grow from seed or can be bought as young plants from garden centres. Annuals are ideal for growing in summer containers and filling gaps in borders. Some examples of annuals include sunflowers, cosmos, sweet peas and zinnia.

like poppies and marigolds need to be sown each year, but they’re still easy, reliable and above all, colourful. Some shrubs are useful too – try hydrangeas or buddleias for sure-fire flower power.

Sensational stems

Stems can bring vivid colour to the garden, especially in winter

How to grow plants for colourful stems

There’s a wide choice of plants which will give you months of vibrant colour in late autumn, winter and early spring from their vivid stems or beautiful bark

Bark is the outermost layer of woody plants (trees, shrubs and woody climbers). It is several cells thick and provides protection against physical damage, disease and environmental stresses. Bark comes in a wide variety of colours and patterns, and these can help gardeners when identifying plants. The fissures and crevices of bark on older plants also creates valuable habitat for many garden creatures as well as lichens and small plants.

. Dogwoods (Cornus) are particularly useful and come in a range of colours from yellows and oranges through reds and greens to jet black.

Other plants to grow for attractive stems include willows (Salix) and ornamental brambles (Rubus). Combine them with evergreen foliage plants such as mahonias for maximum effect – a dark green backdrop will make their colours stand out all the more. If you can, position them where low winter sun can highlight them.