A well designed landscape or garden plan needs to consider all details and factors first before deciding on the different elements that will make up the design. One important and often overlooked factor is climate. Regardless of design style,  your choices should work with the weather and climate that you live in. Having severe climate changes that you’re not aware of can affect your landscaping and your plants. If you live in an area that goes through all four seasons, your landscaping will feel the same climate changes as well. This is probably one of the better reasons for paying close attention to your landscaping plans and ideas. Here are a few tips to help you design a landscape or garden that will stay beautiful in any climate.

Choosing the right plants should have a little research and consideration of what types of plants will work in your area year after year. Used quite common in Desert and Southwest landscape design ideas, planting adaptive and native plants is a good way to ensure that the plants thrive in any climate.  Designing natives into your landscaping plans wherever they’ll work can help make your landscaping more beautiful and maintenance free all year long. Native plants are already adapted to local soils so there’s no problem from different soils. Also, because they grow and propagate locally, natives will already be climatized and adapted to your climate. It’s a good chance that you’ll find a lot of native plants in your area that work well in gardens and landscaping.

Another way to design for climate, almost regardless of what kind of climate you have, is by planting some tropical or Mediterranean landscaping design plants. Most Tropical flowers have very bright colors that can add a lot of life to the landscape. Unknown to most folks, some tropical plant varieties actually grow well in colder climates. Do a little research on tropical plants and you may find a few that will thrive in your area. A few of the tropical plant varieties you can use in not so tropical climates are Purple Queen Bougainvillea,  MidKnight Blue Agapanthus,  and some varieties of Hibiscus. Lantana, which is a profuse continuous bloomer, is also a good selection that comes in several different bloom colors from light purple to bright yellow. Mandevilla vines are a very fast growing plant with trumpet shaped flowers that also works well in many climates.  If you choose, there are probably enough tropical plant varieties that will work in your area and possibly give your landscaping some interest all year long.

Seasonal diversity is also an important element for landscaping or gardens with different climates. If you want more bloom time than just having annuals, then you can use plants with different blooming times and patterns and combine them throughout the landscaping or garden. In this way, even if one kind dies when a certain season comes, you’ll be able to rest assured that you’ll still have something blooming to look at in your landscape design. The important thing to know here is the different blooming schedules of your plant choices. Choose at least one or two that blooms in each season.

Besides plants, you can also use other ornaments in your landscaping to add more aesthetic interest. Ornaments are good since you can put them in your design with no worries of wilting or being damaged due to climate change. You can also use elements like statues, stone pathways, and other hardscapes to make your design more interesting.