This combination works in part sun to light, open shade—protect from blasts of afternoon sun. It's built around a strong evergreen frame that carries the planting year-round and sets up a reliable sequence of seasonal color.

Taxus x media 'Bean Pole' provides the backdrop—narrow, upright, and deep green. Plant a row to create a screen or divide space, or use a single plant as a strongly upright punctuation mark in a smaller composition. Either way, its deep-green-near-black foliage makes everything planted in front of it pop. Buxus microphylla 'Golden Triumph' fills the mid-layer with fine-textured, gold-margined foliage that holds its color and form through all four seasons. At ground level, a swath of Polystichum polyblepharum (Tassel Fern) forms a wide, low mass of glossy evergreen fronds that anchors the composition and unifies the planting. Heucherella 'Brass Lantern' joins the fern on the ground plane, its richly colored foliage pairing handsomely with the chocolate-brown leaves of 'Ebony Pearl' above; in bloom, its froth of ivory flowers brings a spot of light and airiness against all that dark foliage.

Corylopsis pauciflora greets the new season with pendulous yellow flowers on bare branches in late winter, early spring—fragrant and early, at a time when little else is blooming. The gold margins of the boxwood echo the flower color, and the dark fern fronds below make both stand out.

Rhododendron 'Ebony Pearl' brings crimson-red flowers in late spring, and year-round, deep chocolate-brown foliage that adds a dark anchor to the mid-layer. Bergenia 'Pink Dragonfly' times well with the Rhododendron bloom, its rose-pink flower clusters reinforcing the color moment—added bonus, paddle-shaped evergreen foliage adds structure and texture. Fuchsia 'Little Giant' extends color into fall and is a reliable performer in Pacific Northwest gardens.

This is a combination with genuine four-season presence—an evergreen frame that works hard all year, with a sequence of color that feels considered rather than accidental.