News / Clark County News

The Garden Life: Seasonal flowering shrubs carry us through year

By Robb Rosser

Published: May 13, 2015, 5:00pm

Deciduous shrubs enliven the garden with their seasonal metamorphosis.

I am always amazed at the incredible diversity of shrubs on show in the typical Northwest neighborhood. There are so many varieties that none of us can plant every shrub available, although I know a few gardeners who would like to try. We each have to choose an assortment of plants to fit our personal taste as well as the size of our garden and our budget. The pleasant result of all these choices is that a bounty of seasonal shrubs is spread throughout many neighborhoods in the city.

As interest in garden design becomes more sophisticated, we have learned that a shrub is much more than a plant to wrap around the base of a house’s foundation. Placed in beds and mixed into borders, they relate the house to the garden and the people to the house. Shrubs are the horizon of the garden. At eye level, on a human scale, the shrubs surround, divide, and enclose the spaces in which we live. Rising above the shrubbery are the rooftops of our houses, the trees and the sky. Below are the masses of groundcovers, from grass lawns to beds and borders planted with brightly colored annuals and perennials.

Pay attention to the most beautiful gardens in your own neighborhood and you will discover that it’s the seasonal flowering trees and shrubs that carry the garden seamlessly through the year. Regardless of the season, shrubs contour and outline garden spaces and give the garden a sense of privacy and enclosure. Many shrubs use the color of their flowers to tie the picture together. A hot red rhododendron looks great against a yellow house wall. The clear salmon pink blossoms of the flowering quince “Cameo” are elegant trained up a copper trellis.

Used individually, shrubs can stand as specimen plants for each season. The Sasanqua camellia “Yuletide” has Christmas red flower petals, yellow anthers and deep glossy green leaves that will bloom from November through January and into early spring in a mild year. Winter-blooming shrubs herald spring. Spring-blooming shrubs add color, height and texture to a flower border. Roses, hydrangeas and the butterfly bush (Buddleia) continue the show through summer. The fiery autumn leaves of the compact Burning Bush (Euonymus alata) rival any other seasonal flower display.

Used in groups, shrubs frame a view, divide a garden or serve as a backdrop for the flower display in a perennial border. Shrubs can be useful in dividing a garden into specific areas or rooms as well as screening the garden from a neighbor’s windows, an unsightly view or, heaven forbid, an unsightly neighbor. Like a backbone, a well-chosen selection of landscape shrubs gives the garden stature and holds the garden in alignment.

For the most visually appealing garden, it’s best to use a mix of evergreen and deciduous shrubs. Evergreen shrubs establish a framework and are a visual constant throughout the year. Try two boxwoods, trimmed to stand as sentries at the entrance of a formal garden. A row of 10 “Fru Dagmar Hastrup” roses (Rosa rugosa) makes a compact, satin pink hedge. While beautiful, this thorny hedge makes a statement in no uncertain terms, “Do not cross this line.”

Deciduous shrubs enliven the garden with their seasonal metamorphosis. A few proven showstoppers are “Snowmound” spirea, “Red Pygmy” barberry (Berberis thunbergii spp.), and viburnum “Summer Snowflake” (V. plicatum tomentosum). The variegated weigela has cheerful pink flowers against cream and green leaves, popular with both color enthusiasts and hummingbirds. Two Snowball viburnum shrubs and two classic spireas, commonly known as “Bridal Wreath,” flank the entrance to the Fort Vancouver garden with bouquets of flowers in April and May.

Choose shrubs for their growth habit, ornamental flowers and seed heads along with leaf texture and bark display. Remember to plant a mix of trees, shrubs and perennials. We use shrubs in the garden to connect and complete the landscape picture. Keep the basic design within nature’s bounds, grouping shrubs in complimentary colors, shapes and sizes. Always allow each plant enough room to mature to its full potential.

Consider introducing shrubs with scent into your garden’s living spaces. The viburnum “Korean spice” (V. carlesii) has a heady scent that hangs like a cloud in the air of an enclosed garden. The perfume of clethra, with spires of airy, fragrant bloom in late summer, attracts hummingbirds. The smell of lilac is legendary. Let the flowers go to seed and it will attract an assortment of birds. The more I think about shrubs, the more I have to agree with the adage, “You can never have too much of a good thing.”

Robb Rosser is a WSU-certified master gardener. Reach him at Write2Robb@aol.com.

Related Stories