Nursery Market Report: 365 Days of Foliage - All-Season Shrubs

Sometimes called the bones of the landscape or its perennial soul, shrubs can define a green space, only to then redefine it as they grow and mature. They can provide a wall of privacy when planted and sheared as a hedge, and the natural symmetry – or intriguing asymmetry – of their branches can add up to living sculpture. Indeed, the right shrubs can become the focal points in a landscape that grows more interesting from season to season and from year to year.

The following shrubs can grow in most parts of the country and offer seasonal interest year-round through a variety of appealing attributes, from flowers to bark and berries.

Viburnum: U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) zones 4 to 8. A genus of 150 species, viburnums can be evergreen or deciduous, often with fragrant blooms that morph into colorful berries favored by birds. The cultivar ‘Mohawk’ (Viburnum x burkwoodii) grows up to 7 feet tall, and its leaves turn shades of orange, red and reddish-purple in the fall, but they drop in severe winters. ‘Mohawk’s’ finest moment is in late April or May, when its reddish buds open to five-pointed white stars forming an abundance of domes. Its fragrance, a blend of clove and lily of the valley, is intense and carries as far as 30 feet. This shrub is semi-evergreen in the South and needs well-drained soil and a location that is sunny to partly shady.

Flowering Quince: USDA zones 5 to 9. Flowering quince has cup-shaped flowers in a color that, depending on the cultivar, can fall anywhere from pale peach to bold coral. The hybrid ‘Cameo’ (Chaenomeles x superba) has the largest blooms of the species – 2 inches across and double – suggesting tea roses. The delicate color of its petals ranges from peachy pink at the edges to rosy pink in the center, and at 5 feet tall, ‘Cameo’ is almost completely thornless.

Butterfly Bush: USDA zones 5 to 9. From a distance, the butterfly bush looks like a fountain with butterflies hovering over its cascades. Close up, the cultivar ‘Argentea’ (Buddleia alternifolia) offers masses of foot-long, trumpet-like flowers that suggest lilacs. The slender, willow-like, gray-green leaves have a silver sheen. In bloom for much of the summer, the butterfly bush likes a sunny spot and fertile, well-drained soil.

Harry Lauder’s Walking Stick: USDA zones 4 to 8. Corylus avellana ‘Contorta’ sprouts a witch’s broom of upright twigs that will not grow straight, but twist and curl instead. Its foliage is handsome, like the straight members of the filbert clan, also known as hazelnut, but its crop of tasty nuts is not as bountiful. This shrub sparkles when snow covers its leafless branches.

Flower Carpet Roses: USDA zones 5 to 10. First introduced in North America in 1995, these landscape shrubs offer an abundance of colorful blossoms from late spring through frost. Suitable for mass plantings, garden beds or containers, Flower Carpet roses have shiny leaves and are evergreen in warmer climate zones. They’re available in pink, white, appleblossom, red and, new this spring, coral. These 3-foot-tall garden shrubs are known for their long bloom season and natural disease resistance. All Flower Carpet roses thrive on five hours of sun per day.

Mock Orange: USDA zones 5 to 8. Philadelphus virginalis is a fast grower that shoots up to 10 feet in a few years, but at half that height starts yielding white flowers scented like orange blossoms. A rambunctious producer of extra stems, this shrub needs pruning. The selection called ‘Minnesota Snowflakes’ is an overachiever when it comes to the number of its blooms, and ‘Virginal’ has the most intense fragrance.

Heavenly Bamboo: USDA 7 to 10. Nandina domestica is not a bamboo, though its leaves, divided in three, and clumps, reaching 6 feet, are similar. Fortunately, heavenly bamboo does not share the insistent suckering (sending off invasive shoots from the root) habit of that dangerously rampant genus. Its foliage is bronze-red or reddish purple in early spring and then again in the fall, and its white flowers become clusters of brilliant red berries that stay on all winter. Sun or shade, heavenly bamboo will thrive, but only a full-sun location will inspire bumper crops of berries.

Spirea: USDA zones 4 to 9. Dense and dainty, Spirea is a champion bloomer in the spring or summer and makes a billowing hedge. Of its numerous cultivars, ‘Shibori’ (Spirea japonica) has two flowering periods, and it excels by producing both pink and white flowers in the same cluster. The cultivar ‘Anthony Waterer’ (Spiraea x bumalda) starts out with reddish foliage that turns blue-green in the summer, then purple in the fall.

Siberian Dogwood: USDA zones 5 to 10. The leafless, bright red twigs of Siberian dogwood (Cornus alba) ‘Sibirica’ light up the winter landscape and are at their most dramatic when snow covers the ground. Also known as red-twigged dogwood, its vigorous, sturdy, upright shoots can reach a height of 10 feet. Thanks to its habit of suckering, its horizontal spread will eventually catch up. As a thicket or fence, it is a showstopper, and in the spring, shirt-button size white flowers appear. The berries that follow, white flushed with blue, attract birds of all kinds.

Lilac: USDA zones 3 to 7. New hybrids have improved on old-fashioned favorites, yielding more flowers and recapturing the heady scent that was often lost in other hybrids. After the blooms are gone, the foliage appears as a wall of dark green, and the heart-shaped leaves are lovely. ‘Miss Kim’ (Syringa patula) offers smaller flowers but in huge numbers, and their fragrance is intense. Among the whites, ‘Miss Ellen Willmott’ not only retains the traditional scent of the species, but unlike other lilacs, it is reliably nonsuckering. – Charles Fenyvesi

For more information on Anthony Tesselaar International landscape plants and where to purchase them, see www.tesselaar.com.

The author is a freelance garden writer based in Dickerson, Md.