Shrubs for Flower Beds

Azaleas provide showy blooms in your flower beds.

Adding shrubs to your flower beds provides a background for your other plantings and adds curb appeal to your property. Prune and shape shrubs to form a hedge, or use them as specimen plants to add color and variety to your landscape. Look for plants that are suitable for your climate, light and soil before choosing shrubs for your flower beds. Then, add flowers to add seasonal color and complete your landscape design.

Evergreen Shrubs

Low-growing evergreen shrubs are suitable choices to compliment the other plants in your beds, while adding color to your winter landscape. Boxwoods are used alone or in combination with other plants along foundations or in formal gardens. Choose evergreen holly varieties for planting in beds along the foundation of your home. Their shiny green leaves and red berries provide color throughout the winter months.

Deciduous Shrubs

Winterberry holly is a deciduous shrub that has a rounded shape with dark green leaves. The leaves fade to yellow in the fall and drop off to reveal bright red berries that add color to your winter landscape. Barberry varieties are small deciduous plants that add color to your beds. Depending on the variety you choose, the plants produce leaves varying from yellow to green or red.

Flowering Shrubs

Flowering shrubs add spring color to your landscape, heralding the end of winter, a welcome sign particularly in northern climates. Azaleas produce showy blooms in the spring in pink, red, lavender or white, depending on the variety. Some azaleas are deciduous, while others are evergreen. Fragrant abelia is a deciduous flowering shrub that produces fragrant pinkish-white flowers in the spring. Other abelia varieties are evergreen, but all varieties yield spring or summer blooms. The forsythia is a flowering shrub that produces bright yellow flowers in early spring. The shrub is easy to grow and maintain. Prune the plant after it blooms to maintain a small, compact size.

Hedges

A hedge formed from your shrubs makes a background for other plantings in your flower beds. Hedges can provide a green wall along the property or around a house. Tall, sculpted hedges are used to delineate property lines. Trim hedges low along the side of a house as a background for other plantings in the beds. A formal hedge is typically evergreen and trimmed carefully, while a less formal hedge has a more natural look. Depending on your hardiness zone, light and soil, there are varieties available for the type of hedge you prefer. Choose juniper for a bright green hedge that grows well in most climates. Varieties of privet are widely used for hedges. This dense, thick plant grows to 15 feet if left untrimmed. The Red Tip, or photinia, is commonly used as a hedge in southern climates. The leaves of this shrub are red at first and gradually turn to a dark green. The Red Tip forms a dense hedge that is pruned for a formal appearance.

References

• Nature Hills: Bushes and Shrubs
• Greenwood Nursery: Evergreen Shrubs