Ornamental shrubs are one way to set your garden apart from the rest. They are an integral element of landscape design. They can be used to create hedges, in garden compositions as the main elements or background.
Decorative bushes help to emphasize those nuances of the appearance of the site that will help it look as attractive and harmonious as possible. To choose the right kind, you need to understand the diversity of these plants. So what shrubs are there to decorate a garden or vegetable garden?
Types of Shrubs
There are a huge number of types of ornamental shrubs. First of all, you need to choose those that will feel good in the region in which they are going to be planted. It is also necessary to consider the specific place where the bush will grow. A sun-loving plant cannot be placed in the shade. On the contrary, shade-loving species should be grown where the sun does not exist.
Beautiful ornamental shrub
Important! If you do not adhere to this rule, the decorative qualities of a plant may deteriorate significantly, in some cases it may die.
You should also not place lush bushes in small summer cottages.
Sunny shrubs for the garden
Late spring, summer, and early autumn are the most suitable times to plant such shrubs. Names and list of the most common types:
Forsythia is an example of a sun-loving shrub
- Forsythia Only five varieties of this plant are suitable for cultivation in Europe: you can plant European, dark green, medium, drooping and ovoid. This is a medium-sized bush, which first blooms, then overgrows with leaves. In the central regions of Europe, the plant blooms from April to May, in the southern from late February to May. Has beautiful yellow flowers. Moreover, it is resistant to slight frosts.
- Shrub roses. They are not only sun-loving, therefore they tolerate heat well, but are also resistant to frost. They also can withstand sudden changes in temperature. Shrub roses are not susceptible to disease, so they are easy to care for. Appearance may be different. There are even two-tone varieties. Flowering lasts from early summer to autumn. Moreover, the bush can bloom twice a season, which makes it even more beautiful.
- Pion. A universal plant that can be grown both in the sun and in the shade. It is more sun-loving, because it needs at least a couple of sunny hours in the morning. Blooms in the shade longer. Disadvantage - requires careful care.
Here are some more bushes that can be grown in the sun: phlox, some types of geraniums, clove-grass.
Shrub with white-green leaves
One example of a shrub with green and white leaves is pedilanthus. This plant is native to the tropics and subtropics, so it does not tolerate winter. But it does not require complicated care for this bush. The height of the plant is 2 meters, the thickness of the branches is 1-1.5 cm.
Pedilanthus - shrub with white-green leaves
Shrub with white leaves around the edges
One of the most popular types of bush with white leaves around the edges is Fortune's euonymus "Emerald Gayeti". It is an evergreen plant that is best grown in the subtropics. Despite this, it is quite winter-hardy. Nevertheless, it is better not to plant it in those latitudes where severe frosts occur.
Plant height - 20-30 centimeters. It has an interesting design: the main color of the sheet is pastel green, white spots are scattered on it. Sometimes they reach half the leaf area.
Spherical shrubs
Rounded bushes are able to visually increase the space around them. If you use them together with light plants, this effect increases manifold.
Important! Not all shrubs have a spherical shape initially, many need to be specially trimmed for this. Usually thuja and cypress trees have an initially spherical crown shape.
Here are some shrubs that can be used as spherical:
- Privet. The height of the bush is about 1.6 m. It feels good both in the sun and in the shade. Needs a constant haircut. It is a popular ornamental shrub used for landscaping a garden or home. The fact that it is low allows you to place it in the apartment.
- Boxwood. An evergreen plant that can be used for clipping. It can be given almost any shape, including round.
- Forsythia Amazes with its beauty during the early spring. When all the other plants are still unremarkable, Forsythia resembles a huge bright yellow ball.
Forsythia spherical
Also good plants from which you can make a spherical shape are Thunberg barberries, euonymos, yew berry and others.
Unpretentious shrubs
Unpretentious shrubs are easy-to-care plants. They do not require special growing conditions. This includes both spring-flowering and summer-flowering exeplars.
Lilac
There are more than a thousand varieties of lilacs with different colors of inflorescences, flowering period and size. Typically, the plant lets flowers in May-June. The grafted lilacs are more whimsical, it is necessary to carefully clean the root shoot. If you do not, it will easily clog the beauty of this plant.
Lilac - a very beautiful shrub
Fieldfare
Fieldfare is a deciduous representative of the Pink family. In total, there are 10 species of this plant. The bush received this name, because it resembles mountain ash foliage.
Interesting. Fieldfare has a long history of cultivation. For the first time they began to use it for decorating the garden in the middle of the 18th century. Shrub can reach 3 meters in height.
Undersized ornamental shrubs
A characteristic advantage of undersized shrubs - well suited for small areas. Such plants are also used to create hedges, lawns, garden paths.
Spiraea Japanese
Another name is meadowsweet. It is characterized by an interesting coloring of the leaves. At first they are orange, then this color turns into yellow, then - into a dark pink color.
Snowberry
Shrub is better known as wolfberry. Has many species, differing in height, color of fruits. It is berries that are the main decoration of the plant. It is unpretentious to clean air.
Attention! The plant is poisonous. The berries are beautiful, but it is strictly forbidden to eat them. If there is a small child in the family (for example, a schoolboy of the 1st grade), then it is better not to plant a snowman.
Tall shrubs
Tall shrubs are better suited for large areas. Their magnificent appearance will easily emphasize all the advantages of the site.
Lilac
Lilacs come in many sizes, ranging from small bushes to large trees.
Mocker
It is popularly called garden jasmine. In fact, he is very far from jasmine. It is similar to this flower only in a smell and a shade of flowers. It is used as a substitute for jasmine in climatic zones where it cannot grow.
Annual shrubs
Annuals can be used for various tasks: zoning, masking voids, decorating walls, for protection against drafts. Their characteristic advantage is rapid growth, as well as their original appearance. Annual ornamental plants resemble exotic ones, thanks to large leaves and non-standard textures.
Frost-resistant shrubs
Many bushes are frost-resistant, some of them are able to withstand even very severe colds - up to -45 degrees. It is advantageous to plant them, for example, in the Urals, Siberia, where there are many areas with a continental climate. The following is a small list of frost-resistant bushes.
Barberry of Thunberg
It can be used to create hedges, famous for its high resistance to subzero temperatures. Thunberg Barberry can withstand cold up to -35 degrees.
Hawthorn
This is a plant known for its medicinal properties. It can be grown in almost any climatic zone, it requires warming only in areas where the temperature is kept below -40 degrees.
Japanese quince
Quince can not be considered the most frost-resistant plant, but can tolerate light cold in temperate latitudes.
Important! In general, the plant is thermophilic. Frosts up to -30 are generally able to withstand, but with the loss of splendor of flowering.
Heather
This is an evergreen perennial bush that can withstand frosts to -24 degrees. He is also unpretentious in leaving. It can grow where other plants cannot. Height - up to 70 cm.
Bloodroot
This is another perennial that easily feels both during frosts and in extreme heat. Blooms for a long time, up to frost. This is a medicinal plant from which you can make healthy teas.
Beautiful flowering garden shrubs for gardening
There are a huge number of ornamental flowering shrubs suitable for decoration of plots of a very different type.
Shrubs with red flowers
A classic example of a garden shrub blooming with red flowers is special types of roses. They have not only an amazing appearance, but also a great smell. Also, summer cypress, red weigela, red pyracantha and other plants blooms in red.
Shrubs with pink flowers
Many plants with red flowers have varieties with pink. Therefore, you can safely choose special varieties of roses, pink Weigela. Also great shrubs with pink flowers - large-leaved hydrangea "Lucifer" and the action of Strawberry Fields.
Ornamental shrubs with white flowers
White flowers have white or gray spirea, guelder rose, white derain and others. All these plants will appeal to both a student and an adult.
Purple shrub
Beautiful fruit - a plant that fully justifies its name. If growing in a tropical climate, evergreen. In the temperate climatic zone (for example, in the Moscow region), the deciduous shrub. It has beautiful abundantly growing purple berries. If the leaves fall, the plant becomes completely covered in a shade of berries or flowers.
Shrub with bluebell flowers
About bushes with bell flowers have already been discussed in this article. Forsythia is a typical example of a plant with a spherical crown with such original inflorescences. The leaves of the plant appear after flowering. This is a unique feature of the bush.
Shrub blooming with white panicles
White action is an amazing exotic shrub that blooms with white panicles. He hails from East Asia, where beauty and harmony are greatly appreciated. Deytsia looks good on the background of conifers and shrubs. In addition, it is combined with forsia and Weigela.
Important! Resistance to frost is average. It does not withstand temperatures of -25 degrees and below.
Ornamental shrubs with blue flowers
Lilac is the most typical representative of shrubs with blue flowers. In addition, certain varieties of hydrangeas have this color. This is a classic plant that surrounds us everywhere and delights with its magnificent flowering in various cities of the globe.
Thus, decorative flowering shrubs accrue a huge number of varieties and species. It is easy to choose the plant that is suitable for a particular garden. Tall plants are good to use in large areas, small ones in tiny summer cottages.
