What is planted in your garden that will enhance your winter decor? Many of the elements that are present all year can have a true opportunity to shine at the end of the growing season.

Many gardeners shy away from using perennials in the summer, choosing instead to supply color in the garden through the use of annual plant material. I, on the other hand, have a rule for my home garden – no annuals. I like the fact that perennials, while initially somewhat more expensive to purchase, will return for multiple seasons and will also multiply to give me additional plant material to expand my own garden or to trade with gardening friends. So, how does one maintain a colorful garden throughout the summer months? Here are some suggestions.

So many great plants welcome you to the park right now.

About 1,600 tulip bulbs of various colors have been overplanted with violas to extend the color season. We treat our tulips as annuals, buying top-size bulbs for maximum impact, but knowing that they are only there for one season.

It must be spring, because 10,000 violas are getting new homes inside the park, and more than 2,000 cubic yards of hardwood mulch is disappearing from the pile. The push is on to have everything ready, and with everything looking so pretty it's hard to know where to begin.

The forsythia looks as if it will be blooming for our first guests this season. The daffodils are also showing color. Pieris look great right now too, probably due to the increased rainfall we've had over the last few months. However, they only look this pretty for a short period of time.

Much of what happens in winter for the home gardener is encompassed in a single word: planning. Pull out all of those shiny new catalogs and figure out how much new stuff you can fit into your yard.

At Busch Gardens, the planning never stops. Records are kept from year to year of plant counts for each bed, and notes made on performance for any annuals used. This then morphs into a shopping list for the following season.

At home, you have the challenges of weather, diseases, and pests of various sizes. Here, we have those, plus a few more.