Why You Should Be Planting More Shrubs In Your Garden | Shrub Tour of Texture, Color, & Interest

Have you ever thought about creating a garden using almost nothing but shrubs? Because after walking through this garden, you might look at shrubs completely differently. What amazes me about this space is that it doesn't need perennials or annuals to make it look interesting. There are so many different colors and textures and shapes and layers and heights everywhere you look. There's something different that is constantly catching your eye. And the best part of it is, is so much of this interest lasts well beyond the summer garden. As we walk through, I want to show you some of the shrubs that really stand out, how they've been layered together, some ideas that hopefully maybe you can take these ideas in this garden and use them in your own garden. So let's go ahead and take a walk through this garden. I think this might convince you that you should be using more shrubs in your landscape. One plant I really don't think often about and I think I should be thinking more about is abelia. This here is the abelia pink pinata which is hardy in zones six to ten. It's got beautiful foliage and late in the season here, we're in fall right now, you can see these beautiful bell-shaped flowers. The hummingbirds, the butterflies, they love going to those bell-shaped flowers. This is also a shrub that is deer resistant so if deer tend to be an issue in your garden and are making a mess of your garden and of your garden plants it typically will stay away from the abelia the pink pinata i love love love adding and showing you guys different shrub varieties that aren't maybe high up on the list of things that you may be thinking of this is an amazing hedge here of the hydrangea Let's Dance Skyview and this is like for as late as we are in the season this is putting on a still a very nice show of color the thing i'm liking here with sky view is look at all the variation of all the blooms here we've got blooms that are bright pink we've got blooms that are kind of purple and pink changing and then even as we're looking through we're seeing different shades some different darkness of blue and purple in this hedge as i mentioned it's late in the season we are in september right now and it's got a lot of beautiful blooms it's already bloomed its head off this summer, but one thing I'm noticing is that with all these gorgeous blooms, there are still a lot of buds that are being formed on this plant. So as long as our temperatures continue to stay warm enough to keep this plant actively growing, it's going to be continuing to put on flowers until we get that first hard frost. We're in zone 6a here in West Michigan and usually bigleaf hydrangeas are a little tricky for us because a lot of times it's too cold in the winter that the buds die and just to get them to re-bloom and to get them to bloom in general is sometimes very hard. So with the Let's Dance series it's a re-blooming hydrangea and Skyview in particular is probably the best re-bloomer in the entire series. So even if you're in Michigan or if you're down in Florida this plant is going to reliably bloom every season. It is an apart shade garden here in Michigan we can even grow these in full sun but definitely you know it's hard I think to get those hydrangeas that often are showing you lots of colors going on at the same time but this is proof that Skyview puts on a lot of different shades from pinks to purples to blues all in the same plant. This is a true trial garden that we're in today. This is private property. This is at a homeowner's house but these gardens are constantly changing. Plants that are trialed that don't make the cut they're getting ripped out. There's no sense keeping those babies around. They need to make room for new things to trial and that's what's happening in this bed right here. This bed was all hydrangeas when we were here earlier this summer and these were all hydrangeas that didn't make the cut. So they've all been torn out and this is a lot of space. This is a lot of potential for some new plant varieties to get put in to be trialed and tested because that is one thing in these gardens is they are trialing and testing plants for years. So it's not just something that happens overnight. This is constantly changing, constantly evolving to bring better shrubs to the market. And especially when you can get those shrubs that have four seasons of interest to create the beauty like we're seeing in this garden all around us, that is the goal at Proven Winners. So one thing with the hydrangea trials, as we noticed, a lot got ripped out. But these here, the ones that actually made the cut they are getting trimmed back and the reason why is because if these get trimmed back in the fall and they still bloom next spring that goes to show it's a pretty strong reblooming shrub. So here we have a beautiful new Japanese maple this is the Hot Chuna variety and when we were here this summer it was putting on a lot of growth and it's recently been trimmed and you can see how he's kind of shaped it up into kind of a nice tight form here. The nice thing with this particular Japanese maple though is the new growth color and I want to show you I've got a few little twigs here that were trimmed off and they're kind of wilted but I do apologize but look at that look at that fresh bright new green color and this goes to show too in trial gardens don't be afraid to go ahead and trim your shrubs this is what the professionals are doing they're just not letting their shrubs go wild which certain varieties you can but if you don't like the way the shrub looks go ahead and just trim it and shape it to how you want it to look. That also kind of keeps some of the size in check depending on what size your shrub will ultimately get to. So I mean I think this has got a pretty nice shape on it and I'll be curious to see what it will look like next summer when we come here. So here in this garden you can see all of the various colors and textures. Just looking from a distance you can see how there's a lot of structure going on with these evergreen shrubs. They are adding height into the garden. By adding height into the garden, that also makes a garden space feel larger. Now this is a very large garden, don't get me wrong, but by having all of these evergreens in here, it's just really making the garden space feel bigger. Another thing you're noticing is there's a lot of interest going on here with foliage color. You're seeing blacks, you're seeing chartreuses, even some yellows. So it's the foliage that's playing an important role in this garden and helping it to feel more broken up because if this was just a solid green garden, everything would get lost within each other. And another thing we're seeing in this garden is blooms. So as I mentioned, I could not imagine how you could have a garden with entirely only shrubs that always had interest going on year round. Right now we're in fall and we're seeing roses blooming. We're seeing butterfly bush blooming. We're seeing hydrangeas blooming. There is so many things blooming right now in this garden. But it's important to remember that even when you don't have plants blooming, that you're putting plants in the garden that have that foliage interest. Because foliage too, when it has various colors of green or blacks, draw your eyes in to those different spaces in the garden. I'm looking for a compact butterfly bush. Here we have the blue chip junior butterfly bush and you can see how they have this planted in the garden here kind of as a border. Blue chip junior this is about three foot tall or so and the plants are about three foot wide and they have kind of smaller blue blooms on them but even though the blooms are smaller there is a lot of them all over the plant. So there's some blooms that are spent obviously it's fall that's going to happen. There's a lot of blooms that are currently blooming and I'm even seeing this plant still putting on a lot of new growth with buds that will still continue to put on color as long as the season is long enough. Butterfly bush are an excellent plant, especially if you're looking or have butterflies in the garden. It's not a host plant, but it is a plant that the butterflies frequently visit. And one thing we're seeing here in the garden today is a lot of monarchs, and they just keep going from butterfly bush to butterfly bush, enjoying these plants in the garden. I am in one of the most iconic places in this garden. For those of you who know, you know where I'm standing. And this is just absolutely crazy. For those of you who don't, this was a solid hedgerow of the incredible hydrangea. This has been here for years, probably 10 years. It has been photographed probably more than any space in this entire garden. And it is literally almost all gone. And I say almost because as we continue to go, you can see that the hedge is still here. and it is continuing and look at these beautiful blooms big huge blooms these are blooming in july now this here is all of the faded or spent coloration but even though they're looking like this here in the fall this is still great color in the garden now if i had to guess incredible has been like the best hydrangea here on the arborescens for years annabelle was its predecessor. Nobody liked Annabelle because all Annabelle did was flop. Incredible came by with extra huge big blooms on super sturdy stems and did amazing. But there's a new guy in town and that is the Incredible Storm Proof. So if I had to guess, this hedge is going to get replaced by the Incredible Storm Proof Hydrangeas. Why? They've come a long way in the breeding of the arborescens since the Incredible. And with Storm Proof, this is just another improvement in that Incredible series. Incredible Storm Proof has extra big blooms, but even sturdier stems than the original Incredible. So like I said, if I had to guess, we're going to be seeing Storm Proof here in the near future. This here is a Cornus Sergeant Pepper, which not only has one season of interest, it actually has three different seasons of interest. It's got beautiful flowers during the summer, but the rest of the time it's got this gorgeous variegated foliage. So you can see it's green and white, and now that we're getting here in the fall, it's got a little bit of pink on the tips of it. This will lose its leaves as we get colder and as we head into winter, and then what we're going to see is the beautiful red twigs of this plant. So if it's spring, summer, fall, or even winter, the Sergeant Pepper Cornus is always going to be adding some interest into the garden. Yews, they're kind of a plant that I think was from the past maybe a little bit, but they've been brought back and they've been brought back better. Here we have a Stonehenge Skinny Yew and I'm 5'9 and you can see this plant is upwards of probably seven to eight foot tall. It's very narrow, so very narrow and tall. So it's one of those shrubs that is going to add an exclamation point or a pillar into your garden because of its nice columnar habit. The other thing too is this is an evergreen so this is not going to lose its foliage at all. So this is going to be a plant that even in the winter when your garden starts to kind of lose some of its interest it's still going to have its interest because it's going to leave the leaves on this plant and in the winter that's when you're looking for some added color height in the garden because a lot of times in the winter everything just goes flat every all the leaves fall off and you're not seeing a lot of different layers and such going on in the garden but by adding these exclamation points these stone hinge of skinny yews into the garden. They're going to draw your eye up and again that's going to make your winter or your late season garden look bigger. I love the formal look in this garden as well. You can see in the center there's kind of a center there where a big circle and then there's a lot of branching that kind of spokes off of the center of the garden. When we get here it always is kind of you know hard to know like which direction do I want to go because there's so many pathways there's so many ways around this garden to explore all of the beautiful plants that are around every nook and cranny and you know as we're looking here too and you're seeing a little bit more structure of the garden by seeing the straight lines and the curvy lines you're also seeing where purposely placed are a lot of the evergreens that again continue to draw your eye through the garden and that's kind of one of the themes here in this garden is drawing your eye in bringing you in you want to see the next thing you want to see the next thing you want to keep seeing what's in this garden we've talked about how you can trim some shrubs into a tree form and this plant here is actually a great example of a shrub that trims really well into tree form this is a seven sons flower it's called Heptacodium Temple of Bloom and it is like it's almost scary to get underneath of it right now because there are so many pollinators on this plant these beautiful white flowers are just starting to open up. When the flowers are gone there's gonna be little red bracts. This plant has multi seasons of interest from its foliage to its flower to the red bracts that will remain to in the winter it's gorgeous peeling bark and that's part of the reason why a lot of people will trim their their temple of bloom up into tree form is to reveal that bark for that winter interest. This plant here they have three main stalks and that's kind of what I'm trying to do with ours too at the garden center is give it three mains three main stalks of three main main trunks it just gives it a really pretty look and I'm gonna go and see it's also very fragrant so this is a cool shrub that you can trim in a tree form as fragrant as late season color like a lot of plants are not just coming to bloom like this is this late in season so talking about shrubs that add texture and interest into the garden This here is a vitex. It's part of the n-check series, which means it's a sterile vitex and also it's part of the deer proof line, meaning it's deer resistant. Now when I first saw these plants, this is a fairly new introduction, I wasn't entirely sure what I thought about them and I still honestly am not. But one thing I can say for certain is they do add interesting texture and columnar interest to the garden. So feather man is hardy in zones 5b to 10 and likes to be grown in full sun it gets three to five foot tall and two to three foot wide when it's mature in the summer it'll get little purple flowers on it which are interesting and do attract pollinators it's also a drought tolerant shrub so i mean i don't know it's different it's kind of whimsy i know when we first talked about the sambucus laced up that was also kind of a funky fun looking one so maybe that's where we'll put the vitex featherman as a funky fun shrub that adds some interesting columnar interest into the garden. One thing I do like about butterfly bushes is they are very long season bloomers. So for us typically they'll start blooming around July or so and continuing into the fall as long as it stays warm enough again. One thing I will say though this here is a new pugster sorbet. So this is a new butterfly bush and one question that I've gotten from people is in the photograph that is often shown you're seeing a lot of white to purple transition and we're seeing a little bit of that on the shrub right now but we are seeing a lot of that lavender purple going on and from my understanding what actually makes it turn whiter is when the nights do start to get cooler so as the nights get cooler we're gonna see more of the whiteness in this area as then it darkens into more of the purple now pugs or butterfly bushes are very compact they're only two foot tall two foot wide so they're perfect for in the ground plantings or for in container plantings and another thing I'll say being depending on your zone because these are hardy down to zone five for us in zone five six oftentimes our butterfly bush actually die back to the ground in the winter so when they emerge again in the spring we're going to be getting most of our new growth right from the base of the plant for those of you in warmer climates you're going to have your growth that's coming off of the old twigs like what we're seeing here. So depending on where you live, the size may vary a little bit. If it's coming back from the base, it's going to be a little bit slower. Or if it's coming back from the old twigs, it's going to be a little bit quicker to fill out and also quicker to bloom. What do you think about this new color, the Pugster Sorbet? So as we continue to walk through this garden, I want to show you just a couple evergreens. We're going to come back and do an evergreen video in the winter when it's just the evergreen standing out. But this here is the Arborvitae, this is Fluffy, and I felt like Fluffy was something I just had to kind of show you in the video because it's just so in your face as you're walking through. Because of its beautiful, bright chartreuse foliage, almost yellowy. Now Fluffy has been trimmed into shape here, so it's gotten a nice tight trim to get it this shape in the garden. But when you're looking, you're seeing lots of greens, you're seeing some flowers, but when you're standing, especially right here in the garden, and even from a distance, what is standing out? It's this gorgeous pyramid-shaped fluffy. Boxwood have been getting a bad rap lately because of leaf miner and a boxwood blight. That's where the new gen boxwood step in. This here is the new gen freedom boxwood, which is a beautiful evergreen boxwood. It gets about three foot tall and three foot wide, and it's a very fast grower. So sometimes boxwood tend to be a little bit slower growing. This one here is definitely not the case. It can stand to be pruned every so often, especially if you like to keep that typical boxwood hedge look. Trim them into balls or trim them into nice straight lines or go ahead and leave them natural, whatever you'd like. They're hardy in zones 5 to 8, and this is one of those shrubs that actually can be grown in full sun to full shade. So it's very versatile no matter where you have it in your garden. And another thing, it's deer resistant, so you don't have to worry about the deer doing the manicuring for you. This is a fun little space in the garden, and especially if you have a garden big enough to do this in, it's fun to create little rooms. This garden, you walk in here through the entrance and you walk around it, it's a room in the garden. And they have this room lined with the little lime punch hydrangea in the back, and in front they have the Let's Dance Skyview hydrangea. This is a shrub I'm really excited to show you. This is actually a new shrub variety. It's a beautyberry, also known as callicarpa. It's called Bubble Up. So when we were here earlier in the summer, it really hadn't started to do any of its fall interest yet, but right now it's starting to put flowers on and eventually these flowers are going to turn into gorgeous purple berries. So we're a little bit early to show you that yet, but I do think we can show you the flowers and even the dark stems on this plant. It's hardy in zones five to nine and likes to be grown in full sun locations. It's part of the deer proof line, meaning you can plant these in your garden and not have to worry about the deer eating them. Also, too, they make these really gorgeous cut flowers if you wanted to cut them up or in a vase. So bubble up, kind of like a bubble, a bubble, a bubble. So everywhere that the two leaves come together, it's creating flowers, which will eventually be beautiful purple berries later on in the season. So if you're looking for something different, something unique, something that not everybody is going to have in their garden, this beautyberry is really a fun plant for late season flower and berries that lead you into the winter. We've talked about the Lo and Behold Butterfly Bush, and we've talked about the Pugster Butterfly Bush, but we haven't talked yet about the Mist Series. So the Mist Series of Butterfly Bush are hardy in zones five to ten, and they usually get about four foot tall or so. These were recently planted, so they're not to their full mature height yet, but I do want to show you the rich, vivid colors, especially of Miss Molly, which is my favorite in that series. These butterfly bush are absolutely long bloomers, hard bloomers, as most butterfly bush are. They continue to bloom all summer and into the fall. And the proof here is in the pictures. These plants are definitely a must have, especially if you're looking to attract butterflies into the garden. They're not named butterfly bush for no reason at all. They're named butterfly bush because they simply do that. They attract the butterflies in the garden. Another great new introduction that has fantastic foliage, berries, and gets to be a beast is the Sambucus, also known as elderberry, Pink Pony. Pink Pony is hardy in zones four to seven and likes to be grown in full sun to part shade locations. It gets six to 10 foot tall and wide. This plant here is a very mature specimen. It has got that gorgeous glossy dark foliage and clusters of very large berries. I know a lot of people like to take the elderberries and make elderberry syrup or jam or whatever it is out of it. And this plant definitely has a beautiful display of berries. But before those berries emerge, it's got gorgeous pink flowers. This plant not only brings interest with its flowers and with its berries, but with its beautiful foliage in the garden. Make sure you leave enough space in your garden for the Pink Pony. because like I said, she gets big. 10 foot tall and 10 foot wide. We saw Skyview a little bit earlier in the video, but I wanted to show you here it is in another location. And what I think is really pretty about what we're seeing here is how there's a lot of the old spent blooms that still look beautiful, but there's a lot of new ones also popping up. So with the Skyview, we were here this summer and it was just so beautiful. It was loaded with the beautiful pink and purple blooms but what we're seeing right here now that it's fall is a lot of those blooms that were blooming earlier in the season these are all spent blooms they're they're basically done for the season but even though these are done for the season I mean look at this plant right here it is still gorgeous and still has so much color even though these flowers here they're almost dried but this is also showing us how this is an excellent rebloomer which this plant probably is on its third bloom cycle of the season you're seeing these little pokes of blue that are coming through and this is all new blooms off of new growth that happened throughout the summer so that's really one thing that i think is really pretty with the Let's Dance Skyview is because it blooms multiple times throughout the season you're going to get various colors going on so you're going to have your late in the season the beautiful dusty pink color but you're also getting just some sporadic pokes of color off of the new growth with these beautiful purple blooms. So the pink and the bluish purple, it has such a nice contrast in a fall garden. One of the best native species of shrubs that can handle really wet conditions is this Sugar Shack, also known as a Buttonbush. So it has beautiful white flowers during the summer and in the fall those petals all fall off it reveals these gorgeous red berries. This is actually Sugar Shack 2.0 which is an improved version which has more berries, more flowers, nicer habit, really glossy foliage. It's hardy in zones 4 to 10 and can be grown in full sun to part sun locations. It gets three to four foot tall and wide so these are definitely very mature specimens. It attracts the pollinators to the garden when those flowers are on. It was just loaded with bees earlier this summer and also it is deer resistant so it's got multi-seasons of interest from the glossy foliage to the beautiful white flowers or these beautiful spent blooms later on in the season. This plant is an excellent native especially when you're talking wet areas in your garden. Was there anything inspiring that you saw in these gardens today? I know for me there is so much inspiration every time I go here. We have a lot of videos in this garden and we'll post some links below so you can see other times of year when this garden is totally in bloom. If you have any questions or comments please feel free to leave them below and if you're new to our channel I welcome you to subscribe thanks for watching I'm Heidi from Garden Crossings