Foliage To The Rescue! Using Leafy Plants To Fill and Frame.

Leaves with red or purple
Trees: "Forest Pansy" redbud, "Evelyn" crabapple.
Shrubs: smoke bush, sand cherry, Japanese barberry.
Plants: bronze fennel, "Gibbsoni" castor bean, canna, "Pyramidalis/Burgundy Lace/Purpurea" carpet bugle.

Leaves with silver
Trees: arizona cypress.
Shrubs: Artemisia, lavender-cotton, heather.
Plants: yarrow, Japanese painted fern, dusty-miller, russian sage, lamb's ears.

Leaves with gold
Trees: golden fullmoon maple, "Golden King" false cypress.
Shrubs: "Aurea" barberry, "Kew Gold" sage, "Goldflame" spirea bumalda.
Plants: "Pineapple Wizard" coleus, hosta, "Limelight" licorice plant, spotted dead nettle, bowle's golden grass.

Plants for shape
The shape of the leaves is as important as the colour. A good start for playing with shape design is to plan two contrasting leaf shapes. For example, start with a ornamental grasses and then add a plant with a completely different form, such as one with rounded leaves. Here is a bigger combination: foxglove, variegated lilyturf, "August Moon" Hosta, "Piedmont Gold" Hosta and maybe some columbines, that would put a touch of blue to contrast. For an efficient combination of simple leaf shapes, I like peony, columbine, and iris, but the combinations are limitless. I have collected some good choices here below. Experiment with several until you find one that suits you.

Large foliage
Hosta, canna, peony, comfrey, foxglove, ligularia, bergenia, lords-and-ladies, globe thistle, and rhubarb for big spaces.

Long narrow foliage
Grasses, daylily, bamboo, yucca, sweet flag, sedges and rushes, daylily, iris, lilyturf.

Lacy, fine-textured foliage
Astilbe, ferns, fennel, meadow rue, sweet cicely, goatsbeard, bugbane,ferns, "Silver Mound" Artemisia, cosmos, Achillea, love-in-a-mist, butterfly weed, thread-leaf Coreopsis.

Evergreen or deciduous?
Evergreen plants keep their leaves all year round, and deciduous plants loose their leaves for a couple of months. Which one is the best for you depends on your goals. considerations include screening, colours, or extending the season of your garden. Since winter is a "empty" season, put at least one plant that will fill and add features to your yard. Some shrubs and trees will give you some colour and texture in the cold months. Japanese holly, heathers, junipers, dogwood, climbing hydrangea, leucothoe or pieris with his broad-leaves are great examples.

This site has a list of trees, shrubs and vines for fall with some pictures and details on them. This one from University of Saskatchewan explains how leaves get their colours. For more about textures and colours, read "Texture in the Color Garden" from The Creative Garden, and "Richly Textured Plants Invite You to Stop and Feel the Foliage", an article from Fine Gardening Magazine

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