Abeila

This hybrid abelia was created in 1911 at the Glenn Dale Plant Introduction Center by Edward Goucher from a complex cross involving several species. It was the best adelia of its time and still retains that first place today.

Description: This semi evergreen shrub looses its leaves in the northern part of the growing area, is small in size. Four feet is the average maximum, although it can attain five feet in a good location. It forms a dense, rounded shrub with lustrous, dark green leaves in summer and taking on a purplish tinge in winter. The fragrant tubular flowers, purple pink in color, are borne profusely for much of the summer and early winter.

How to grow: Plant in full sun or half shade in moist, acid soil. The shrub should be protected from cold winter winds, especially at the northern limits of its territory. It can be pruned in spring, since in blooms on new wood, although it looks best if pruned selectively rather than sheared.

Uses: Its lacy appearance and long blooming season makes it a good choice for a spot of honor in the yard. The abelia makes a good foundation and accent plant and combines well with broadleaf evergreens. It is sometimes used as a hedge in the south. The plant attracts hummingbirds with its tubular blossoms.

Common Boxwood

The common boxwood forms a large shrub or small tree if left to its own devices, but most people know it as a small, densely leaved, evergreen hedge. It originated in western Asia but is well established in the wild throughout Europe.

Description: The common boxwood can attain 30 feet in height, but this is rare in culture. It is a densely branched, slow growing shrub with numerous small, smooth edged leaves. They are usually dark green and shiny, remaining on the shrub all winter, although they are subject to turning brown in strong winter winds. The fragrant flowers and tiny fruit offer little interest.

How to grow: Boxwoods grow best in full sun and rich soil. Newly transplanted shrubs should be protected from the summer sun, and even established plants are subject to winter damage if exposed to drying winds.. Mulching will help prevent to its shallow roots, keeping them slightly moist at all times. Boxwoods can be sheared into just about any shape and respond will to harsh pruning.

Uses: Its evergreen nature and slow, dense growth makes this shrub ideal for formal hedges and topiary. It is a good border plant and an excellent choice for foundation plantings.

Bridal wreath

The genus Spiraea is a highly popular one in the garden. Most are spring bloomers with numerous tiny white flowers. Bridal wreath is one of the best in this group.

Description: The Vanhoutt spiraea grows 6 to 8 feet in height, spreading 10 to 12 feet in diameter. It has a distinctly fountain like growth habit, with a round top and arching branches curving to the ground. Its leaves are simple or slightly lobed and less than 1 ½ inches in length and diameter. They are greenish blue and turning plum color in the fall. The tiny white flowers appear in dense clusters in mid spring.

How to grow: Although the shrub will grow in medium shade, full sun produces more flowers. The Bridal wreath adapts well to most soils To keep the shrub in top shape, prune back one third of the old flowering wood annually after it finishes blooming.

Uses: An excellent accent plant, the bridal wreath is also good for informal hedges or screens and is well suited to mixed shrub borders.

Bush Cinquefoil

The bush cinquefoil forms a small dense shrub producing yellow flowers throughout the summer. In the wild it grows throughout much of the Northern Hemisphere. The common name, cinquefoil is from old French for five leaflets, a reference to its compound leaves.

Description: This is a bushy shrub, growing up to 4 feet in height and as much diameter. It is well cloaked in foliage; small pinnately compound leaves with three to seven leaflets. The leaves are silky green when they unfurl, changing to green in the summer. They have little fall interest. The buttercup yellow flowers, which look like tiny 1 inch wild roses, are borne singly or in small clusters from early summer until frost. Few other flowering shrubs for cold climates have this much staying power.

How to grow: The shrub grows well in full sun or partial shade. The latter is the best choice for the dark flowered varieties, which tend to turn pale in full sun, It tolerates most soil types, even poor rocky ones. Prune either by shearing back to the base in spring, or by trimming off the older branches annually, removing up to one third of the plants stems at a time.

Uses: The bush cinquefoil is a good choice for prairies and the North, where so many other ornamental shrubs fail. It makes a fine accent plant, an excellent informal hedge, and can be added to shrub and perennial borders or mass and foundation planting. It is an all purpose, easy care shrub.

Common Lilac

Just about everyone recognizes the common lilac. Its dense clusters of highly perfumed, lavender flowers are an essential part of the landscape, especially in colder climates. Its delightful scent has been captured in many popular beauty products.

Description: The common lilac is an upright leggy shrub that grows to about 15 feet in height and a spread of 12 feet. Its heart shape, dark green leaves are up to 5 inches long. The flowers are produced in dense, pyramid shaped clusters at the end of the branches in spring. They are light lavender in the species.

How to grow: Full sun is best, although lilacs will grow in up to medium shade. They are tolerant as to soil type, but prefer neutral soils with good drainage. Deadhead after blooming to stimulate good flowering each year instead of every second year. Remove old trunks and unwanted suckers occasionally.

Uses: The lilac is a good spring accent plant, offering little interest the rest of the year, It is often grown in shrub boarders and makes a good cut flower.

Fountain Butterfly Bush

The fountain butterfly bush is a tall shrub or small tree that is native to China. By far the hardiest of the butterfly bushes. It performs reliably as a true shrub in most conditions as many others die to the ground in winter and are best treated as perennials.

Description: The fountain butterfly bush is a tall, arching, graceful shrub reaching 15 feet in height if not pruned. Its branches are practically pendulous, making it resemble a shrubby weeping willow. The long, narrow, dark green leaves are grayish below. Although deciduous, they offer little in the way of fall color. The ends of the branches are covered in June with dense clusters of delicately scented, bright lilac purple flowers.

How to grow: Light, dappled shade or full sun are best. The shrub prefers deep, rich soils. Prune by removing one third of the old wood after blooming.

Uses: The fountain butterfly bush is an excellent accent plant if given enough space. It can be trained into tree form by pruning, making its pendulous form even more striking and attracts butterflies.

Inkberry

This is the hardiest of the evergreen hollies, found in the wild in eastern North America from Florida right up to Canada. Although it is does not have the spiny leaves of the Christmas holly it is an attractive and useful plant in the landscape.

Description: Inkberry is a medium size shrub with an upright, rounded form, often becoming rather open with time if not pruned. It spreads by suckers, forming colonies. The small leaves are oval to almost spoon shaped, are dark green and lustrous, remaining on the shrub all year. They sometimes turn brown in harsh winters. The insignificant flowers are followed by black berries, which last through winter.

How to grow: Plant in sun or shade in moist rich soil. The shrub tolerates, and even prefers acid soil, so it can be grown in combination with rhododendrons and azaleas. It can be pruned heavily to rejuvenate older specimens.

Uses: Inkberry makes an excellent choice for foundation planting, hedges and screens, mass plantings and container plantings. It is a good city shrub.

Japanese Andromeda

The Japanese andromeda is a medium size Asian shrub with attractive, glossy foliage and white waxy flowers borne in drooping clusters.

Description: Although it can attain 12 feet in height, Japanese andromeda is slow growing and is usually seen as a 4 to 6 foot shrub with dense evergreen foliage. The lanced shaped leaves are shiny and dark green at maturity, but display a bright coppery coloration when they form, a characteristic that has been accentuated in many varieties. The long lasting, urn shaped flowers appear in spring in pendulous clusters and are lightly fragrant. The flower buds form the previous summer and add to the attractiveness of the shrub.

How to grow: This plant requires the same general conditions as rhododendrons and azaleas, moist, acid, well drained, organic soil with a deep mulch, and are often grown with them. Moderate shade is best, especially in the South. Prune after flowering. It needs protection from cold winter winds.

Uses: The Japanese andromeda makes a beautiful specimen plant or can be planted in groups, in shrub borders and as a background plant for other broad leaf evergreen.

Japanese Barbery

This small leaved, spiny shrub is a popular hedge plant, adaptable to a wide range of conditions. It is unequaled in brilliance of its autumn foliage and bright red berries.

Description: The Japanese barberry is a medium size shrub, eventually reaching 6 feet in height and somewhat wider in spread but only half that in the dwarf selections. Its dense branches are liberally covered with smooth, leathery, spoon shaped leaves with small spines. The deciduous leaves are bright green in summer, becoming orange, scarlet, or reddish purple in the fall. The yellow flowers are scarcely noticeable among the foliage, but. The berries are long narrow and bright red, and are a long lasting fall and winter feature.

How to grow: This shrub is often available as a bare root shrub for spring planting. It does best in full sun, but is adaptable to various soils, even doing well in dry conditions. Plant 2 feet apart for hedges.

Uses: The Japanese barberry is an excellent plant for hedges and barriers as well as mass plantings. It can be pruned quite harshly if necessary. The red berries attract birds.

Korean Spice Viburnum

The viburnum are a vast and varied group of plants. While many are widely planted, the Korean spice viburnum is one of the most popular. It is a medium size shrub with pure white, highly perfumed flowers and jet-black berries.

Description: The Korean spice virburnum forms a rounded, dense shrub with upright, spreading branches. It usually remains well within bounds at about 4 to 5 feet in height and somewhat more in diameter. The leaves are heart shaped, dull dark green, and fuzzy, turning wine red in fall. Its flowers appear in dense half moon clusters, a form often called semi snowball. The buds are red to pick, opening to reveal pure white, long lasting, fragrant flowers. Red berries appear in early fall, finally turning black at full maturity, but they are of secondary interest.

How to grow: This shrub does well in full sun to partial shade in a well-drained, moist, slightly acid soil. Any pruning should be done immediately after the flowers have faded.

Uses: The Korean spice viburnum is mainly used to ass spring fragrance to the landscape. It works well in foundation plantings, mass plantings, shrub borders and the like.

Peegee Hydrangea

This popular old-fashioned shrub is currently undergoing a surge of renewed interest. Its main attraction is its long lasting flowers, which appear in late summer and last right through fall.

Description: This hydrangea, possibly the showiest of all large shrubs, reaches 10 feet or more in height and spread. It has an upright, rather coarse habit with large, elliptic, toothed leaves that are dark green and offer little fall interest. The pyramidal clusters of flowers, often so dense the branches arch gracefully under their weight, are up to 18 inches long and 12 inches wide at the base. Its flowers are mostly sterile, attractive form, opening white in late summer and gradually change to purplish pink in late fall, brown in winter.

How to grow: Grow in full sun or partial shade in a good loamy, moist soil. No hard comes from harvesting the flowers of long lasting dried arrangements. In fact, this actually helps stimulate bloom nest year while preventing the winter damage that can occur when snow adds weight of the already heavy flower clusters. Hard pruning may be necessary every few years in early spring to remove old wood and improve the naturally straggly growth pattern. It can also be pruned into a standard tree form.

Uses: The peegee hydrangea makes an attractive freestanding shrub or addition to a shrub border.

Rhododendron

The rhododendrons broad, leathery leave and large trusses of pink flowers are known by everyone. But these iron clad rhododendrons are only a drop in the bucket in a huge sea of thousands of rhododendron species and hybrids. To further ad to the confusion, the genus also include azaleas. Fortunately, their culture is similar. If you can grow one rhododendron you can grow the all.

Description: Rhododendrons have a broad, leathery, persistent leaves, while most azaleas have smaller, thinner, deciduous ones. Plants range from low growing to tall, tree like shrubs. The flowers are generally cup or funnel shaped and appear singly or in clusters at the end of branches. They are often brightly colored in white, pink, orange, red, mauve, purple, and other colors. Most are spring bloomers, although there are several summer bloomers and even a few that flower in the fall.

How to grow: The plants in the rhododendron complex, with a few exceptions, are acid loving plants with shallow roots. Plant them in rich, organic, well-drained soils and protect their root system with mulch. Although they grow well in full sun, they need some protection from winter wind and are best planted in dappled or light shade. They are slow growing and require little pruning.

Uses: Rhododendrons are good choices for shrub borders, mass planting and foundation plantings. Some are good container plants. Most are well adapted to intermediate climates. But only a few are good choices for extremely hot or cold conditions.