Lady Banks rose only blooms in spring. If there is one color to pronounce the arrival of spring, it is yellow. The glow of sunshine heralds the start of the growing season with a spectrum of hues and shades from pale lemon to golden flares.

Color is one of the easier elements of design to plan in each garden season. A recent spring visit to the Carolina Children’s Garden revealed how the garden welcomed visitors to a monochromatic landscape painted in yellow flowering bulbs, shrubs, and vines.

Clusters, pools, and drifts of daffodils trumpet and dance during the vernal equinox celebration at the garden. Daffodils are inexpensive, long–term, and pest–free perennials. Brent and Becky Heath run a family–owned bulb business in Virginia with one of the largest selections of daffodils. See www.brent andbeckysbulbs. com/

As reliable as an old friend, forsythia weathers a variety of light, soil, mois- ture, and drainage conditions. Forsythia x intermedia ‘Karl Sax’ in the Three Bear’s Homestead may be a common shrub but when allowed to spread its arching branches with deep yellow four–lobed flowers, it becomes an uncommonly beautiful spirit of spring. Any straggly growth can be pruned after flowering. Forsythia is easy to transplant and to propagate from stem cuttings.

The leatherleaf mahonia, Mahonia bealei, in the bird garden has racemes of bright yellow fragrant flowers that become blue fruit clusters consumed by birds. The leathery, thorny evergreen leaves are a handsome textural feature year–round.

Wintergreen barberry, Berberis julianae is an erect evergreen shrub with racemes of bright yellow, bell–shaped flowers followed by bluish–black fruits. Thorns on the branches make it a favorite nesting site for a mourning dove. Watch mother dove at Eggwatch 2010 at www.carolinachildrensgarden. org/

Cost–effective, pest free, dependable daffodils dance the rites of spring. Pendulous yellow catkins on Harry Lauder’s walking stick, Corylus avellana ‘Contorta,’ in Three Bear’s Homestead are just one of the special features of this garden conversation piece shrub. The twisted and corkscrewlike stems and branches are most noticeable in winter and early spring. The yellow catkins signal the onset of foliar dressing.

The Carolina Fence Garden features the native Carolina jessamine vine, Gelsemium sempervirens, twining its way over fences, trellises and other plants with its sweetly scented yellow trumpet flowers.

In late spring the entrance arbor to McGregor’s garden is festooned with the double yellow pompom blossoms of the yellow Lady Banks rose, Rosa banksiae. This species rose only blooms in spring but is thornless, void of diseases and pests, drought tolerant, and long–lived. It grows rapidly and will need persistent training to keep it where you want it.

A visit to the Carolina Children’s Garden at the Clemson University Sandhill Research and Education Center in northeast Columbia can give homeowners ideas on ways to paint the home landscape with plants in every season.