Today’s Garden Ideas

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Garden borders can be of various designs. Some are made with border fence or stone. Others are of an organic nature using ground cover, flowers, and ornamental grasses. But, if you want a very colorful border with no tedious up keep, you might want to consider a flowering shrub border garden.

Types of Plants

Border shrubs offer a myriad of shapes, textures, colors and sizes to fulfill your border garden plan. Some possible border plants for you to incorporate into your shrub border garden include azaleas, lilacs, hibiscus, or hydrangea.

Designing a Border

A beautiful shrub border design should include waves of texture and color as well as shrubs of varying heights. For example you may want to try planting camellias in the back of your border garden as these can grow up to six feet or maybe a tall arborvitae. Medium sized shrubs should be planted in the next row. Consider using azaleas or hydrangeas. They can grow up to 4 feet and come in colors ranging from pale blue to bright yellow.

Finally smaller border shrubs should be planted in the front row. Try using boxwood, a slow growing evergreen shrub, or Trillium with its red or white flowers.

Don’t forget you want to provide color all year round. Try planting Shrub Roses. These very low maintenance border garden plants grow about 2 feet tall and come in brilliant colors like fire engine red. In addition they are very resistant to infestation from insects or disease. Spirea is another shrub with pink flowers in the summer and fire red leaves in the fall. Even in winter you can still have color in your shrub border garden by planting holly. The leaves themselves are a colorful green and cream throughout the year and the brilliant red berries in the winter add a distinctive festive touch to your border shrub garden.

Caring for Your Shrub Border Garden

Remember that your border garden shrubs will need a rich well draining soil. Before planting your border shrubs dress the soil with compost, manure or peat moss. Be sure to dig a hole twice the size of your shrub’s container. If the container is full of roots then loosen them a bit before planting. After planting the border shrub be sure to give the plants a good soaking. Don’t forget to mulch around the shrubs to keep weeds from growing and overtaking your border garden.

If you purchased younger shrubs your border garden might look rather empty the first year. If this is a major concern consider purchasing older shrubs that have grown and filled out. Be aware however, the older shrubs will be more expensive. Or, focus on purchasing fast growing shrubs so your shrub border garden will fill in more quickly. Please note that some of these fast growing shrubs may require more frequent pruning to keep them from overwhelming your shrub border garden. You could also include some smaller flower border plants to fill in the empty spaces. This will require more work on your part, and more expense the first few years but it will give your border garden a fullness the shrubs will be able to accomplish on their own in a few years.
Otherwise just be patient. In a few years your shrub garden border will be stunning. And what is best, it will look that way with no effort on your part.




PLANTS FOR A COLORFUL SHRUB BORDER
TYPE	PLANT	DESCRIPTION
	Beautyberry	H: 4-6ft., S: 4-6ft; fills out as it grows; stunning stems of red-purple berries in late fall; prefers slightly acidic soil; zones 5-8
	Boxwood	H: 1-5ft., S: 1-3ft; slow-growing evergreen shrub with dark green, oval leaves; moist, well-drained soil; zones 5-9
	Trillium	H: 6in., S: 8-10in; woodland groundcover with dull green, ivy-like leaves; white, red, or brown flowers in early spring; needs moist soil and shade; zones 4-9
	Strawberry Begonia	H: under 1ft; S: 1-2ft; shade-loving groundcover with subtle, pink splashed foliage; prefers moist, humus rich soil; thrives in cooler climates; annual; all zones
	Azalea	H: 2-10ft; S: 2-4ft; leathery leaves; round, compact form; red, pink or white flowers cover the shrub in spring; acidic soil; zones 3-9
	Camellia	H: 6-15ft; S: 3-6ft; oval, glosy green leaves; dark red, white, pink or purple flowers from late spring to mid-summer; grows upright and bushy; prefers moist, acidic soil; zones 6-9

Tags: azalea, beautyberry, border garden shrubs, border shrubs, boxwood, camellia, shrub, Shrub border, shrub border garden, shrub garden border, shrubs, strawberry begonia, trillium