ColorChoice Articles
White can be a great addition to any garden, but is especially important for gardens that will be enjoyed most often early in the morning and in the evening. White and silver plants tend to glow in the low light, while darker colors fade into the background. Using white can make your garden more inviting when the light wanes. These 27 container combination recipes use primarily white flowers, with a few light colors and the occasional dark color to round out the options.
Putting the flowers in flowering shrubs has always been our mission – and these plants epitomize that. These reblooming shrubs bloom once along with conventional varieties, then they go on to bloom again, or to keep blooming, through the season. If you are looking to add flowers, and plenty of them, to your landscape, especially shrubs that bloom all summer, take your pick of these ten favorites. All have been trialed and proven to be outstanding in the field, and in your garden, making them some of the best long blooming flowering shrubs available today.
Getting a good looking, colorful winterberry holly is as simple as having the right male in this winterberry holly growing guide.
Hydrangeas are extremely popular and the cool season of fall is the best time to plant them! Here are 5 easy-to-grow, easy-to-love hydrangeas that you can plant with confidence.
Purple is the new neutral in the gardening world. It goes with just about any other color you pair it with, from contrasting oranges to complementary pinks and greens. The descriptors “blue” and “purple” are used loosely when it comes to purple flowering plants; they describe a whole range of these cool tones. Check out this list of thirteen purple landscape plants you’ll love in your garden.
While lots of people are talking about it these days, gardening for pollinators – insects, birds, and even bats that feed on the nectar, pollen, and leaves for plants - isn’t just a trend. It’s central to plants’ roles in our ecosystem. If you don’t get the appeal of attracting pollinators to your landscape, planting one of these ten shrubs will make you a convert. Each one is beautiful, easy to grow, and the pollinators they bring in will add another layer of excitement to the floral display. Or better yet, try more than one, layering in plants for all seasons, to invite nature’s visitors to your home for months each year.
Groundcover plants are a great answer to some of the most problematic garden and landscape conundrums. From uneven terrain, to places where you just can’t get other varieties to thrive, low growing groundcover shrubs are a great low-maintenance choice for small space gardening. These hard working plants can be used to dress up garden borders, as mass plantings in larger easy care landscaping projects, and as natural tool to prevent erosion. Plus, because of their low growing characteristics, less weeding and mulching is required where these groundcover plants are sited.
Clay soil is much maligned by gardeners and homeowners everywhere, especially when choosing shrubs for clay soil, and no wonder: it’s heavy, sticky, and difficult to work in as part of clay soil gardening. But the simple fact is that clay soil gets its bad rap because it’s hard on people - from a plant’s point of view, clay soil is usually not problematic at all, particularly for plants that grow in clay soil. In fact, clay soils offer plants two major advantages over other soil types: they hold water well, minimizing drought stress, and are abundant in nutrients essential for plant growth for shrubs for clay soil. So, if you’ve been struggling to achieve your dream garden or landscape in clay soil, cheer up! Here are ten beautiful shrubs that will thrive in clay.
I recently had the opportunity to speak to the Russian Nursery Stock Association at their annual conference in Moscow. This is the second time I have spoken at this conference and the attendees were once again eager to learn about new flowering shrubs that are hardy enough for Russian winters.
Have you ever seen a rose looking a little bit…weird? It could have rose rosette disease. Here’s our FAQ on the problem, what to do if you get it, how you can prevent it, and answers to common questions about what is rose rosette disease.
Photos courtesy of:
Jennifer Olson, Oklahoma State University, Bugwood.org
