Outdoor plants

Outdoor plants are generally heartier than their potted cousins. Some, such as ferns, flourish with no direct sunlight at all. On the opposite end of the spectrum, evergreens are sturdy enough to take direct summer sun in 100 degree days, and yet keep their greenery through a snowy winter. But whether you’re looking at Japanese maples, cedars, ferns, shrubs, rosebushes, or even perennial flowers such as tulips, all of the outdoor plants have adapted to life throughout the calendar year.

Evergreens feature the least marked change between summer and winter of all the outdoor plants and trees, but that does not mean that there are no changes. For instance, every perennial woody plant sends out new growth in the spring. Through the summer, it takes in as many nutrients as it can. In the fall, it consolidates, adding girth to the existing limbs and killing off unproductive branches. Even evergreen trees undergo this same seasonal growth pattern.

Perennial flowers such as tulips exhibit a much different seasonal pattern of behavior. While tulips and other outdoor plants blossom in the spring, much like trees do, they do not remain exposed to the elements during the winter the way a tree does. Tulips kill off their above ground stalks every fall, and the fertilized bulbs split, doubling the population of a tulip colony every fall. After the winter freeze, the bulbs reactivate, and if none die off, twice as many tulips show up the following spring.