Best Variegated Outdoor Trees of 2025

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Variegated outdoor trees are a beautiful addition to any garden or outdoor space. These trees come in a variety of species and offer unique colours and patterns on their leaves, creating a stunning visual display. They can provide shade, privacy, and add an element of natural beauty to any landscape. Variegated outdoor trees require minimal maintenance and are hardy enough to withstand the elements, making them a great investment for any homeowner or landscaper. Whether you're looking to add some interest to your garden or create a focal point in your outdoor space, variegated outdoor trees are an excellent choice.
At a Glance: Our Top Picks
Top 10 Variegated Outdoor Trees
Holly Tree 'Argentea Marginata' with Variegated Foliage
The Holly 'Argentea Marginata' is an evergreen tree that offers year-round beauty. Its foliage starts as a striking purple-pink and matures into deep green with lovely silvery edges, adding visual interest to your garden. In summer, it produces creamy blooms, while in winter, you'll enjoy vivid red berries that not only enhance the landscape but also provide a food source for wildlife. This tree is perfect for introducing height and character to woodland settings, making your outdoor space more inviting.
Acer Red Flamingo Japanese Maple Tree
The Acer Red Flamingo is a stunning deciduous shrub that can be trained into a tree, offering you a beautiful addition to your garden. Its slow growth means it won't overwhelm your space, while its vivid red stems and unique white markings will catch the eye year-round. You will appreciate the colourful foliage, which features a delightful mix of green, pink, and white. This plant thrives in moist but well-drained soil and can be positioned in full sun or partial shade, making it versatile for various garden settings.
Acer pseudoplatanus Simon Louis Freres Variegated Sycamore Tree
The Simon Louis Freres Sycamore boasts vibrant foliage that transforms with the seasons, offering striking pink leaves in spring, lush green and cream in summer, and a beautiful golden bronze in autumn. You will enjoy its yellow-green flowers that bloom in April and May, adding extra charm to your garden. This tree reaches a height of 6 metres and a spread of 5 metres in 20 years, making it a fantastic choice for providing shade. It thrives in full sun and prefers fertile, moist, well-drained soil, ensuring a healthy and robust growth.
Salix Flamingo Dwarf Tree for Gardens
The Salix Flamingo Tree is a stunning addition to any garden, featuring a unique 'lollipop' stem that catches the eye. In spring, its leaves emerge in a lovely pink, transforming to variegated shades of pink, creamy white, and green, before maturing to a rich green in summer. This low-maintenance tree is perfect for planting in beds, borders, or containers, making it versatile for various garden settings. With its vibrant colours, it will undoubtedly add a splash of joy and beauty to your outdoor displays.
Forsythia Nimbus Show Off Sugar Baby Tree
The Forsythia Nimbus Tree is an elegant choice for your garden, boasting a compact and wide-spreading habit. Its fragrant flowers and lush green leaves add beauty to any small garden or patio. This hardy tree thrives in well-drained soil and is tolerant of both partial shade and full sun, ensuring you can place it in various locations. Minimal maintenance is required, making it perfect for busy gardeners. A simple pruning in July encourages vibrant growth for the following season.
Photinia X fraseri 'Louise' Variegated Tree
The Photinia 'Louise' is an impressive ornamental tree that reaches a height of 5-6ft, making it a striking addition to your garden. This evergreen beauty starts off with a lovely blush pink hue, which matures into a rich green with a cream margin, providing visual interest throughout the seasons. It also blooms in spring and early summer, bringing delightful flowers to your outdoor space. Being fully hardy, this tree thrives in full sun or partial shade, ensuring it fits well within various garden environments.
GardenersDream Weeping Pussy Willow Tree
The Weeping Pussy Willow is a beautiful ornamental tree that will enhance your garden with its stunning waterfall-like branches and vibrant golden catkins in spring. Its hardy ‘lollipop’ single stem makes it ideal for small gardens, patios, and flower borders. This tree thrives in well-drained, moist soil and can be positioned in full sun or near water features, providing flexibility for your garden design. With minimal maintenance required, you can simply prune the branch tips for vibrant foliage each year.
Thompson & Morgan Wedding Cake Tree
The Wedding Cake Tree from Thompson & Morgan is a unique addition to your garden, featuring tiered branches that create a striking silhouette. Its bright green leaves with creamy-white margins add visual interest, especially as they turn a lovely yellow in autumn. In May and June, you can enjoy pretty clusters of small creamy-white flowers that enhance the beauty of your outdoor space. Additionally, the tree’s stems mature to deep red, and black berries often appear, providing a delightful source of food for local birds.
Kilmarnock Pussy Willow Tree for Gardens
The Kilmarnock Willow Tree stands at a height of 90-100cm, making it an impressive addition to your garden or patio. It is available in a convenient 19cm pot, allowing for easy handling and placement. This hardy plant features beautiful waterfall-like branches adorned with dark-green leaves and golden catkins in spring, providing a stunning visual appeal. With minimal maintenance required, you can enjoy its beauty without the hassle of extensive care, making it perfect for flower borders and small gardens.
Salix gracilistyla Japanese Pink Pussy Willow Tree
The Japanese Pink Pussy Willow is a stunning addition to any garden. Standing at 50-60cm tall, it boasts beautiful, waterfall-like branches adorned with dark-green leaves and golden catkins in spring. This hardy tree is perfect for flower borders, small gardens, or patio displays, bringing vibrant colour to your outdoor space. With minimal maintenance needed due to its robust structure, you can enjoy its beauty without much effort. A simple prune of the branch tips in July will ensure fresh, variegated growth for the next season.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. Can trees be variegated?
There are several variegated cultivars of the tulip tree, Liriodendron tulipifera, perhaps the best being 'Aureo-marginatum' with leaves margined deep gold — a very handsome tree.
2. Do variegated plants need more sun?
Foliage plants with variegated leaves require brighter light, because their two-toned leaves have less chlorophyll, which is needed for growth. If the plant is not getting enough light, it will respond by making all-green leaves so it can make more chlorophyll.
3. What is the plant with variegated leaves?
This type of leaves, containing partly white color and partly green color, are called variegated leaves. Examples of plants having variegated leaves are coleus and croton. Variegated types of leaves can be often found in parks and gardens. Another example is Euonymus microphylla.
During our variegated outdoor tree research, we found 21 variegated outdoor tree products and shortlisted 10 quality products. We collected and analyzed 3,401 customer reviews through our big data system to write the variegated outdoor trees list. We found that most customers choose variegated outdoor trees with an average price of £29.75.
The variegated outdoor trees are available for purchase. We have researched hundreds of brands and picked the top brands of variegated outdoor trees, including Thompson & Morgan, GardenersDream, Easy Plants. The seller of top 1 product has received honest feedback from 5,906 consumers with an average rating of 4.3.

Toby Butcher is a Horticulturist, and he earned his title as a Master Gardener in 2016. Toby has acquired a 25-year experience as a home gardener planting, designing, grooming vegetables and flowers. He is the leader of a plant group in Durham. Toby owns a blog where he publishes articles on growing and growing your flowers at home, in a vase, or in a garden.