Expert garden bloggers share their favorite shrubs

When I first started creating the garden at our house, my first garden as before I just had a balcony to put containers on, I ran out and got every perennial I thought looked interesting. Of course I've learned so much since then and the beautiful thing about gardening is that you can correct your mistakes. One of the most valuable things I've learned is the beauty of a mixed border combining perennials, shrubs, annuals and even, occasionally, trees.

Shrubs are so key to good garden design because they offer structure and interest that you just can't get with perennials.

I love asking fellow gardeners what their favorite plants are. Last year I asked some great garden bloggers about perennials, but this year I tried to pin them down on shrubs. Here's what they had to say.

Kylee writes the excellent blog Our Little Acre and gardens in northwest Ohio. She has a handful of garden cats who hang around, chickens and an adorable new granddaughter. And in April, the book she co-authored with another fantastic garden blogger, Jenny Peterson, will be published. Indoor Plant Decor is going to be the bible of indoor gardening.

Here's what Kylee picked (see what a good job I did nailing her down to one? I'm such a pushover):

Just like last year, I've had a difficult time paring my favorite down to just one. Erin wants to know my favorite shrub and I just couldn't come up with just one! So, I narrowed it to these three: 

Proven Winners photo

• Physocarpus opulifolius 'Coppertina' - I wanted this from the moment I first heard about it, but had to be patient, because I didn't find it locally until a few years ago. It was every bit worth the wait! Its foliage color is beautiful when mature, stunning when new, and it always looks good, you know?  It's hardy in Zones 3-8 and it's not picky about soil pH.

Monrovia photo

• Fothergilla 'Mt. Airy' - When spring comes,  it shows up with bottlebrush white blooms that remain while its corrugated green foliage finishes leafing out. Then in fall, it turns an absolutely thrilling shade of orange.  When the sun hits it then, it fairly glows. This shrub was discovered here in my home state of Ohio by the great Dr. Michael Dirr, whom I had the opportunity to meet last month! Oddly enough, it likes acidic soil and we have alkaline, but it does just fine for me. (Rhodies, azaleas, and blueberries don't do well here, as a rule, since they too, like acidic soils.) Hardy in Zones 5-8.

• Magnolia x loebneri 'Leonard Messel' - Though it's pretty nondescript for most of the year and can be susceptible to powdery mildew, I would still be sad if anything happened to it.  What it does in spring makes up for all the rest of the season.  Its blooms are the most heartbreaking shade of pearly pink and the centers are real works of art if you look closely.  In time, it will grow quite large, unless you keep it pruned so it can remain a large shrub. Ours is currently very much in shrub form. It likes a fair amount of water, so we planted it in the wettest part of the yard and it seems happy there. It's very showy when blooming and is hardy in Zones 5-9, as well as being deer-resistant.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

 Anyone who has read this blog for long knows that I love Genevieve's blog North Coast Gardening. Even though she gardens in a very different part of the country from me, she always manages to speak to gardeners in any zone and she is always my go-to source for gardening product reviews.

Here's Gen's pick:

Photo courtesy of Genevieve Schmidt

Parrot's beak, or Clianthus puniceus, has been making my heart flutter for the last few years. I mean, just look at those blooms! They're a solid 2-3 inches long, come in large clusters, and you can choose from the regular coral or go for red (pictured) or white varieties.

A lot of plants with such splashy flowers have lackluster foliage or a rangy habit, but parrot's beak shines here, too. The leaves have a lush, fern-like appearance that fits in around water features, tropical-style plantings, or really, nearly anything. And while it makes a great stand-alone shrub, it's also a natural to espalier. I have one growing against my chicken coop that only sticks out about 2 feet, and I don't need to prune it much - just a little pinching to direct the growth. They'll grow about 5 feet tall and around if left to their own devices.

Obviously, since they're from New Zealand they need full sun, good drainage, and not too cold of a climate - they're happy in zones 8-11.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Debbie is an expert garden designer and garden coach (which is so cool) in Connecticut's zone 6.  She is also a member of the Garden Designer's Roundtable, which is an incredible source of inspiration and information. She blogs at a Garden of Possibilities.

Here's Debbie's beautiful pick:

Photos courtesy of Debbie Roberts

While it's impossible to pick just one favorite shrub, I have to say purple beautyberry (Callicarpa dichotoma) is right at the top of my list of favorite shrubs. Even though it does have an interesting shape with its almost horizontal branches, for most of the year it's fairly quiet and unassuming. But in the fall, when many other shrubs and perennials are looking a bit tired, purple beautyberry puts on an amazing show. Small purple berries drip from the branches. The shrub seems to glows in the sunlight. Here in my Connecticut garden, the berries remain on the shrub after the leaves fall off so it's not unusual to find the little purple berries dusted with snow in the winter.

Purple beautyberry likes a spot in full sun to partial shade and average garden soil and it seems to be deer resistant, at least in my garden (knock on wood!)

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Christina Salwitz is a home gardening training specialist. That's a lot of words to say that she doesn't garden FOR people, she teaches them to garden, which seems so appropriate for an activity that derives so much of its enjoyment in doing it, not just appreciating it. She gardens in Washington state and blogs at The Personal Garden Coach where she posts amazing photos that will have you clambering to get into the garden, tips and tricks, book reviews and more. She is also the co-author of the new book Fine Foliage, which celebrates the beauty of foliage over flowers. You should see some of the amazing foliage combinations presented in the book. It's stunning. She is also a member of the Garden Designer's Roundtable. 

And because with a book hot off the presses and a booming coaching business she's a busy lady, so Christina cut right to the chase:

My favorite “lately” has been the Bountiful Blue Blueberry. It has SUCH amazing foliage color, evergreen, turns a lovely soft plum tone in winter, AND an incredible amount of great fruit. What’s not to love?!

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Steve Asbell is an incredibly talented gardener, blogger and artist who is lucky enough to garden in Florida (at least I'd consider him very lucky at this time of year). His blog, The Rainforest Garden, is about "taking a healthy dash of botanical style and incorporating it into your life through decorating, crafting, cooking and yes, even gardening." His illustrations are not to be missed. He also has a book coming out in early 2014. Plant by Numbers has tips and recipes for creating a carefree indoor garden with 50 artistic living arrangements with houseplants, ranging from tried and true Dracaenas to up-and-comers like mistletoe cactus and bromeliads.

Steve is writing about one of my favorite tropical shrubs:

Photo provided by Steve Asbell

Dwarf Bottlebrush (Callistemon viminalis ‘Little John’)

For those of you growing in zones 9-11, dwarf bottlebrush has everything you could possibly ask for in a shrub. First of all, it’s one of those rare bushes that stays small without much maintenance, with tight whorls of velvety blue-green leaves that stay attractive throughout the year. Most folks however, grow it for the fire-engine red ‘bottlebrush’ flowers that glow in the sunlight and bring hummingbirds in droves. All of these great features are reason enough to grow the plant, but the reason it gets my vote is that it is incredibly drought tolerant and thrives in the hottest and driest spots in my garden. If you live in zone 8 you can grow dwarf bottlebrush with protection, or just grow the larger varieties since the cold will keep them in check. In northern zones, dwarf bottlebrush’s small size and admirable drought tolerance makes it a winner for container plantings.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Linda from Each Little World is a great blog friend whose garden isn't all that far from mine, but I still haven't seen yet. She is blogging less frequently than she once did but every post is insightful and interesting. I'm crossing my fingers that we'll see more of her garden as spring approaches, especially because big changes are in the works in her garden: a large tree that was the foundation of one of her shady beds fell in an early winter storm so she'll be figuring out what is next for that part of the garden. Her photos, often taken by her talented husband (and gardening conspirator) Mark, are stunning and look like they've been lifted from the pages of a lovely gardening book. 

Here's Linda's pick:

Dwarf Alpine current makes a long, low hedge curving away from the nearby apple trees in Linda's garden.
Mark Golbach photo

If it were May or June, then I'm sure I'd declare Doublefile Viburnum my favorite shrub. It's definitely a show-stopper and is always the center of attention when it blooms. But shrubs in the winter garden need to stand-out in a different way than summer plants. At this season, Alpine currant (Ribes alpinum) makes a much needed statement. I grow both the straight species and the dwarf variety ('Green Mound'). 

They take well to pruning, creating strong horizontal lines in the garden: green in summer; almost black in winter. Some years, they make a strong presence in the winter garden; other times only the top of the hedge peeks out of the deep snow. Because they become so densely twiggy they have not been broken like so many other garden specimens during the heavy snowstorms we've had in recent years. It's a shrub that's well-worth a second look, and it's usually readily available at most nurseries.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Erin here: I'm overwhelmed by all the great shrubs that garden bloggers love. Some I've never heard of and others I had written off but now I'm anxious to try (Fothergilla and Alpine current, I'm looking at you). But I thought it was only fair to share my favorite shrub, which I know will come as no surprise to regular readers. 

Plant touchers unite!

 Hydrangea paniculata 'Limelight' is hardly flashy anymore in these days of super-improved shrubs but to me, one of the best things about shrubs is that they are often the lowest maintenance plants in the yard. That's important to me.

I have some special plants and I'm happy to give them extra care but there just isn't time for a garden full of diva plants. Some of them just have to manage more or less on their own. And that's just what Limelight does. I prune it in very early spring or late winter every year (some years more than others), I sometimes throw some compost or organic fertilizer at the base of it (but sometimes not) and I make sure it gets a good amount of water (I have a soaker hose in that garden that I circle the root zone with). And that's it. It's hardy to zone 3 (Siberia?) and heat tolerate to zone 9. The only thing to know about it is that while hydrangeas have the (often wrong, at least in northern zones) reputation for liking shade or part shade, Limelight wants sun, at least up here (I would assume it would  take a bit more shade the farther south you are). Given those few things, Limelight offers up huge lime-tinged blossoms that fade to pink and then dry to brown, where they are a welcome sight in the winter garden.

Thank you to all the great garden bloggers who participated! Now, onto the important part: What is your favorite shrub?

Two great blogs to check out

Every once in a while I run across a great blog that I just want to tell the whole world about. Unfortunately it often turns out that the whole world already knows about them and I'm last to the party.

I have two I want to just quickly mention today, one that you've probably heard about and the other you might not have discovered but you will love, I'm sure.

If you are an HGTV fan you probably know who Emily Henderson is. She's the super cute and a little bit wacky woman who won Design Star a couple years ago. I'll admit, she wasn't my favorite, but since I can't remember who my favorite at the time was, I think it's safe to say that Emily is the goods. She has a show called "Secrets from a Stylist" in which she redecorates a room by melding the styles of its owners.

Style by Emily Henderson photo

Here's what I like about her blog: every single post is full of incredible information and she's not shy about sharing it. There are a couple blogs (a few of which I've previously highlighted in a post just like this) that have completely lost their charm for me because they've either gotten a tad preachy or are trying way too hard to sell me something. You know, they go this close to giving you some really good information and then stop and tell you that their design services are available for a fee here. It's like a blogging commercial except that the show never comes back. Or they purposely post some outrageous design theory presented as a hard and fast rule that you know isn't a rule at all and they are just trying to get people to share their post by being outraged. I'm sure they learned that trick from one of those "How to be a blogger" blogs.

Um, I think I just went into a bit of a rant there. So sorry. Back to good blogs.

To give you an example of the kind of stuff Emily talks about on the blog, here's a video she did on styling a mantel. I suppose some of the stuff is self explanatory, but it's helpful to here why things don't work, as well as why they do. The reasoning behind her selections is more important that the selections themselves.

She has a wonderfully eclectic style with a hefty dose of vintage thrown in that I can appreciate even if it's not exactly the look I would want in my house. I tend to like blogs that inform me and maybe teach me how to do something. A blog that shows me a gorgeous space that costs $50,000 is not really applicable to me on any level beyond just eye candy.

Speaking of eye candy, I found eye candy for anyone who loves beautiful pictures, but especially anyone who loves beautiful pictures of flowers and gardening. Floret Flower Farm is a lovely little blog written by another Erin (I swear the blog world is full of Erins) who runs an organic flower farm and makes amazing floral designs. Her work is stunning and her life looks totally dreamlike (although I'm quite certain there's an insane amount of hard work hiding behind those smiles).

If I had to sum up her blog in two words I'd choose these: charming and gorgeous. You can't go wrong when those two team up.

Floret photo (with delphiniums to die for).

Check these blogs out and let me know what you think.

Expert bloggers' favorite perennial picks

I've been trying to deny the calling of the seed catalogs and the desire to peek at the vernal witch hazel and the warmest corners near the house where the bulbs come up first (it is only January, after all) but there is only so much a gardener can do during an unseasonably warm winter.

That's why I called on some of my favorite gardening bloggers to share with their favorite perennial. These three ladies are experienced and creative gardeners so I knew they'd bring an interesting perspective.

First up is Genevieve from North Coast Gardening. I've written about Gen before because I love her blog North Coast Gardening which is full of great tips and product reviews.

Gen's pick: Korean tassel fern

My favorite perennial is one that often gets overlooked in the shade section, tassel fern. Anyone championing it would have an uphill battle from the start, since its botanical name is nearly unpronounceable—Polystichum polyblepharum. Say that three times fast! But tassel fern is easily the most elegant, easy-to-grow plant I know for shade. Its foliage has a glossy sheen that looks great against pretty much any shade shrub, and the rich green color softens rock walls or other strong hardscape elements. It's even evergreen! You can buy it at Plant Delights if your local nursery doesn't carry it.

Isn't that fern lovely? And evergreen would be lovely! Plants Delight lists it as being hardy to zone 5b (which more of us are in now that the plant hardiness zone map has been adjusted) so I'd definitely love to try it. By the way, if you really do want to know how to pronounce some of those tongue-tying plant names, check out Fine Gardening magazine's pronunciation guide.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Next up is the tireless Kylee who blogs at Our Little Acre, gardens in Ohio, writes for a couple gardening magazines and is the book review editor for Horticulture Magazine. She's also an excellent Words with Friends player.

Kylee's pick: Toad lily

As Erin said to me, asking me to name my favorite perennial is akin to asking me which is my favorite child. It all depends on when you ask. If it’s June, I might say Astrantia; ask me in July and August and I might say Orienpet or Oriental lilies. (Who doesn’t love their fragrance?)

Then there are ones that have such intricate features that are fascinating when you examine them up close, like my Five-leaved Akebia (Akebia quinata ‘Alba’), with its white blooms every so lightly striped with purple.  Or the Chinese globe flower (Trollius chinensis ‘Golden Queen’)—so lusciously fringy.

Akebia quinata ‘Alba’

•••••••••

Chinese globe flower

••••••••

But ask me which perennial I most look forward to seeing and which one I’d miss if I didn’t have it and I’ll tell you toad lilies. Such an ugly common name for such a beautiful flower! Botanically, it’s Tricyrtis, with various species names tagging along behind.  (hirta, amethystina, formosana, etc.)

It’s not the showiest plant in the garden, at least not for most of the summer. It’s a little later to emerge in the spring than some perennials, and it’s definitely later to bloom, but that’s one of its best traits. When September and October come along and 80% of the garden is waning, Tricyrtis is putting on the best show of its life.

Each bloom looks like a little spotted orchid. There are some that aren’t spotted too, such as ‘Togen’ (often misspelled ‘Tojen’), which happens to be my favorite bloom among my collection of a dozen or so different cultivars. I like ‘Dark Beauty’ too, for its sea of blooms and ‘Miyazaki Hybrids’ for the way they bloom at the leaf axils up and down the stems.

Tricyrtis 'Togen'

•••••••••

Tricyrtis 'Miyazaki'

•••••••••

The blooms aren’t the only sway they hold over me. The foliage can be just as varied. ‘Lightning Strike’ is streaked, while several cultivars have subtle green-on-green spotting. And did I mention they do all this in the shade?

I think these work better as a specimen plant, perhaps because the blooms are diminutive. Seeing them planted en masse wouldn’t necessarily pack the punch that other plants do. But a few clustered here and there in the shade garden will cause you and your garden visitors to take notice. They’re generally hardy in Zones 5-8/9, maybe colder, although since they bloom so late, in colder zones the flowering time may get cut short by early frosts.

By the way, I love both of my two daughters the best.

Kylee (middle) with her two equally loved daughters Kara and Jenna.

Would you believe I have NO toad lilies in my garden? Sounds like I'm going to need to change that.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

And last but not least is Linda who blogs at Each Little World. Linda gardens in my old stomping grounds of Madison, Wisconsin, and I hope to be able to stop in and see her amazing gardens in 2012. I think Linda and her husband Mark do garden structure better than almost anyone. They have that whole "backbone of the garden" thing down.

You might be surprised to see what Linda sent to me as her favorite perennial. I didn't tell any of the contributors what plant the others were writing about (and I didn't know until they sent it either). What I love is that while Kylee focused on the beautiful blooms of Tricyrtis, Linda loves them for their interesting foliage. I have to admit. I once saw them on her blog for a Foliage Follow-up post (on the 16th of every month), and I had to ask what they were because I was so taken by the amazing foliage.

Linda's pick: Toad lilies

If I look in my plant files it’s easy to discover my favorite perennials by noting which plants have multiple listings. By the numbers, I’m currently growing 17 Epimediums, 18 Geraniums and 22 Hemerocallis, to name just a few. They’re all wonderful plants, but to rise to the level of “favorite perennial,” that plant is the one that I wait for the longest: toad lilies (Tricyrtis species). I think the anticipation of watching a clump get fatter and taller as the season stretches on is guaranteed to turn that plant into a favorite. Fall bloomers like toad lilies (I’m growing 11 varieties) are there in the garden almost from the start of the spring, patiently waiting for their moment. Even though they’re not blooming, they put on a show all season with their arching stems and bright green, gold and patterned foliage. And they keep my attention to the very end: either wondering if they will flower before the first frost arrives or basking in their beauty as their tiny orchid-like blossoms sway amidst the falling leaves.

 

That last photo makes me swoon. Yes, I'm totally sold on toad lilies.

 

Are you growing any of these? What's your favorite perennial (and, like I told the great contributors, you HAVE to pick)?

Thanks again to Gen, Kylee and Linda for participating. Your blogs are a continual source of inspiration to me!

 

 

Guest posting today

Hi everyone!

I'm more than a little excited to be guest posting on one of my favorite blogs today.

House of Turquoise is one of my daily reads and it serves as a daily source of inspiration for me. If you're not already reading it daily, you should be. And if you are a House of Turquoise reader visiting The Impatient Gardener for the first time, welcome! I blog about a little bit of gardening, a little bit of DIY and little bit of everything else. I hope you enjoy it and become a follower. And if you're so inclined you can also find me on Facebook and Twitter.

I'll be back in a bit with a listing of some of the best Cyber Monday deals around. Aren't you glad it's not another counter update?

The easiest garden ever

I've mentioned and recommended one of my favorite blogs,  North Coast Gardening, more than once. There is loads of great information, but probably my favorite feature on the site is the product reviews. I have yet to buy one thing recommended by Gen that I don't love and a couple of things she hooked me onto are my favorite gardening tools (my hori hori and my Bahco pruners).

Recently I was l fortunate enough to win a giveaway for an Eartheasy Farmstead raised bed kit through North Coast Gardening and I can't tell you how excited I was. I've been looking at doing a small addition to the raised veggie garden to move out some of the more space-intensive plants that the critters won't touch (I'm looking at you, zucchini), and this sounded like the perfect solution.

After what can only be described as the most convaluted method of delivery ever (Fedex didn't just get on the failboat for this one, they were the captain, navigator and first mate of the failboat), the raised bed arrived, sort of. It was actually found on the side of a neighbor's garage. And I use the term neighbor loosely, since it was actually on an entirely different road. But I guess these things happen and I will say that the people at Eartheasy were amazing about the whole thing, which was not even close to being their fault.

But I digress. Stay on task, Erin, my fourth grade substitute teacher Mrs. Hummerding would say.

Anyway, amazing raised bed gets here. And I set about putting it together. But you see, Gen and her rather well-known cohort Amy Stewart (author of "Wicked Plants," "Wicked Bugs" and official Garden Rant ranter) made a big ol' fuss about how quickly they could put together their raised bed (Eartheasy says you can put it together in less than five minutes and Gen and Amy were aiming to do it in significantly less). So I watched their video (the unedited version so I could time them myself) and it took them exactly 30 seconds.

Never one to turn down an imaginary challenge not issued by anyone, I decided I would do it quicker than that. And I did.

28 seconds, baby! And oh yeah, I was by myself, so boo-yah.

(We regret to inform you that video footage of said major accomplishment/engineering feat is not available because I didn't shoot one. But trust me, I blew them away.)

So the last two pictures are phone pictures and boy are they horrible. Unfortunately the camera I use for the blog is actually the work camera and someone needed it for a work-related purpose so I've been without it for a week. How dare they!

Seriously, though, this is the easiest thing I've ever put together in my life. Slide in the ends and stick in the dowel pegs that hold it all together. That's it. Oh and since it's made of white cedar it smells amazing.

Fill that baby up with dirt (all I did was cut the lawn short underneath it and use my garden fork to sort of perforate the ground under it), and plant away. I'm thrilled to have the garden-eating zucchini moved out and I put a few herbs in it too. I hope to plant some garlic in fall and next year it will be the perfect spot for onions, too.

And yes, I realize I'm going on a bit much about how much I love this raised bed, but all I did was win a great contest. Nobody even asked me to write anything about it, but I had to share it  because it is truly the quickest way to get gardening that I've ever seen.

Check out this blog

The gang over at Young House Love featured this blog the other day so you might have already found it, but I can almost guarantee it will be the funniest thing you read today.

Check out Catalog Living and get ready to laugh.

Great blogs

I   t's funny how my opinion of blogging has changed in the last year or so. I used to think that blogging was the ultimate in self-indulgence. I guess I assumed that most people were using blogs as an online journal. I couldn't have been more wrong. Blogging has opened up a forum for creative people who I would never otherwise know about. I learn something from a blog every day. It is the perfect place to steal borrow ideas and frankly, most bloggers are people like you and me: regular old folks who were looking for an answer to a question or solution to a problem, found it and posted about it in case someone else has the same question (and believe me, they do.)

I hesitate to encourage blogging because there's no doubt it poses a real threat to newspapers and magazines (and as a product of both and one of the lucky few who continues to make my living from words printed on paper I feel a certain obligation to the great printed word), but the fact of the matter is that not everyone will pitch their great story idea to a magazine, not every editor will be smart enough to recognize that it's a great story and not every blogger even wants to be published on a piece of paper.

I've been so impressed with the blogs I've found. These blogs are created by people who truly care about what they are blogging about. They are not, as you might say, phoning it in.

So I thought it might be appropriate to occasionally feature a great blog that I've found. I won't be held to any particular genre of blog (and I follow everything from gardening to home design to blogs written by dogs), so it'll always be a surprise.

And the first blog to be featured in this space is one I've just recently found. It's called Colour me Happy and it's written by Maria Killam, an interior designer and color expert. I don't know about you, but color really confuses me. I love it, but never really know WHY I like a particular color or why it works in a particular space (or even if it does at all), as evidenced by my ongoing saga with whites (here and here). Maria has studied color so she's one of those people who can tell you about undertones and when she explains it, it all makes sense (like in this post which talks about my current obsession: gray). I only offer you this warning: Once you discover Colour me Happy, you'll be obsessed with plowing through as many fascinating posts as you can.

If you know of a great blog that I should make sure to check out, including yours, if I'm not already a follower, let me know!