Introduction Most gardeners hoping to create attractive gardens think first of flowers. But plants have so many other appealing features, beauties that add color and shape and texture, bringing life to our lives and our gardens. Every aspect of a plant, from its emerging spring shoots to its lofty maturity, has the potential to inspire interest and admiration--or just to bring us pure color. But why stop at plants that do just one thing, have just one appeal? Why not choose powerhouse plants that have more than one season of interest? These are plants that offer two or more entirely different features so that, at different times of the year, different displays are produced at the same place in the garden--from just one plant. Such multi-talented plants are especially valuable in small yards where every inch is precious. What better way to make the most of a limited space than to create different displays at various times--in different seasons, or perhaps just a few weeks apart--from just one plant? In larger spaces, plants with more than one season of interest bring an enhanced richness, a new diversity, an intensity missing in normal plantings. Walking through your garden to admire your plants will take at least twice as long! Finally, plants that shine at more than one season allow different plant combinations to be created with neighboring plants at different times. Another stretch for your imagination, true, but so rewarding.

And never think that plants with multi-season appeal are rare or obscure or are only discovered by a diligent search of the country's specialist nurseries. Many will be found in your local nursery or garden center. You need only to look. Once the idea is implanted in your mind, you'll notice these powerhouse plants. And when looking at a plant in flower at the nursery, you'll find yourself asking: "What else does it do?" All year, and especially through the winter, there are trees and large shrubs whose colorful or beautifully patterned bark brings as much brightness and satisfying structure and design as any flowers. Later, some will bring us vivid flowers or colorful fruits and especially fall color--but some will not. On a smaller scale there are shrubs whose twigs are so brilliantly colored that they outshine the early bulbs planted below them. For some, their winter stem color is the beginning and end of their contribution to the garden, and for the rest of the year their primary function is to host to a viticella clematis.

But some continue into spring with flowers, or take us through the summer with variegated folia≥ some will develop fruits, and a few offer leaves that will turn colorful autumnal shades. The choice of variety is crucial. As spring greets us with its surge of new growth, the bright emergence of new shoots on trees and shrubs and the fresh new growth on perennials as their shoots shoulder aside our mulch is an effect not always appreciated. And the fact is that most gardeners do not grow plants for this feature--they grow them for whatever comes next. But choose well, and a whole new phase of spring appeal becomes the opening act to summer flowers or a long season of attractive foliage.