Landscaping Shrubs
27 Oct 2008
There is a long list of landscaping shrubs that can be used in the home landscape. Some species are new and unusual, while others are tried and true. The main types of landscaping shrubs are evergreen and deciduous.
Evergreen Landscaping Shrubs
At the top of the evergreen list of over 600 species are rhododendron and azaleas. These ornamental plants are hardy and long-lived. They have flowers of all shapes, colors and sizes. The most popular are the Pink Parl, Rhododendron Maximum, Boule de neige, Abraham Lincoln, Lady Armstrong, Everestianum and Caractacus. Rhododendrons don’t like soil high in lime, and should be protected from winter-burn with lots of humus.
Azaleas like the same conditions as rhododendrons, meaning, partial shade – may also be used for foundation planting; they do well in thin woodlands.
Boxwood has been one of the well-loved landscaping shrubs for generations where winters are not to severe. It can be pruned to make formal rounded shapes. Unpruned they can grow as high as 20 feet. It is used as a landscaping shrub for paths and walks.
Euonymus Patens is another of the popular evergreen landscaping shrubs that is hardy. It has glossy green leaves and red berries. Japanese holly, or inkberry, is also popular. Laurel is another of the familiar evergreen landscaping shrubs, used for foundation planting. American mountain laurel has clusters of pink flowers in spring.
Deciduous Landscaping Shrubs
Lilac is probably one of the most liked among the deciduous landscaping shrubs. Lilac must be grafted either on its own stock or on privet stock. Plant lilac as early in the spring as the soil can be worked. The common lilac, which has light purple flowers and grows to about 10 feet high, is the best known, but there are several hundred varieties, in white, pinkish-lilac, reddish-lilac and bluish-lilac.
Buddleia, the butterfly bush, grows to 16 feet or more if not killed back by winter damage, and gets its name from the fact that in the summer, butterflies are always seen around it. The buddleia takes many forms: a small-leaved landscaping shrub with small purple flowers; as fascinating a cattleya-pink bush; as flaming violet, a brilliant purple, and as white profusion, a dwarf variety with pure white flowers. Also the Empire blue shrub, the dubonnet, the red glory and white cloud.
Flowering quince (Cydonia) has rose-like flowers and a scarlet bloom in spring. Japanese quince grows to 6 feet; has orange-scarlet flowers.
Deutzia is one of the more easily grown landscaping shrubs, pleasing for the many small flowers it bears in the spring. Types include the 2- to 3-foot pink deutzia, with its delicate flowers; the pride of Rochester, with large double white flowers, and Deutzia Lemoinei, which has large, pure white flowers.
Other deciduous landscaping shrubs are the dwarf buckeye, which blossoms in July with 12-inch spikes; the chokeberry bush, liked for its decorative fruit; broom, which grows in sandy places and blooms in June and July, and witch hazel, a shrub that grows to 20 feet and has spidery yellow flowers.
Forsythia is a welcome shrub because it needs little care; with its drooping sprays of yellow flowers, it is one of the more useful landscaping shrubs for softening the lines of walls.
Hibiscus blooms in August, a rarity, with flowers that are large and purple, or rose-pink or white. It grows to 12 feet if left unpruned. Hydrangea, another of the landscaping shrubs with large blossoms blooming in July and August, is a showy bush, with big blue globe-shaped clusters.
Honeysuckle bushes are landscaping shrubs that are useful for mass planting. Some varieties are especially enjoyable because they blossom in February and March.
Several spirea varieties are found to be useful as screen plantings, particularly because of their dense growth and abundant flowering. Anthony Waterer spirea is a 2-foot bush with white or rose-pink clusters. Bridal wreath has profuse white clusters in May. Spirea Thunbergii also has white flowers, and Spirea Vanhouttei, 8 feet high with dense white flowers, is used as a living fence.
Viburnum (the popular snowball) is 10 to 12 feet high at maturity and is used for high foundation, screening and hedges. It has white snowball-shaped flowers and foliage turns crimson in fall.
Weigela is popular, too, in many varieties, including the variegated weigela, dwarf landscaping shrubs with rose flowers and variegated silvery leaf. There is also Weigela rosea, with rosy trumpet-shaped flowers, and the new brilliant cardinal landscaping shrubs.
Check out some of our other posts for more on landscaping shrubs.
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