Shrubs Ideas, Tips & Guides

Hebes are popular evergreen shrubs, mostly native to New Zealand although some are native to Australia and South America. They come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, and are suitable for growing in a range of sites and planting schemes. Hebes are excellent in shrub borders, used as ground cover or low-growing hedging, and are relatively low-maintenance.

Creating an entryway that truly works is a worthwhile investment. You will enjoy how it makes your home look and feel, and providing a welcoming first glimpse of your home and property will increase that all-important ‘curb appeal’ if and when you sell your home.

The popping of the seed pods in the plants is in response to a stimulus that acts as a trigger, such as touch or environmental factors. This mechanism aids in the dispersal of seeds and ensures the plant’s propagation in its natural habitat.

Euphorbia is a large genus, with plants ranging from Christmas poinsettias and cowboy cacti to large shrubs like Euphorbia mellifera. The shrubby hardy varieties make excellent garden plants for a range of situations, depending on their size and preference.

These cotton candy-like flowers not only create a magical effect in your garden, but also attract beneficial pollinators!

For years, Foxglove (Digitalis species) has been a quintessential cottage garden flower. It is native to Europe and is a member of the plantain (Plantaginaceae) family. Foxglove adds height and color to the garden. Grow foxglove with other perennials along a fence or in front of large evergreen shrubs. Plant a large group for an eye-catching display.

If you want the colors in your garden to stay intact even in the peak of heat, these flowers are a great choice as they keep on blooming no matter how warm the weather gets!

There are certain nuggets of good garden advice, so counterintuitive that they seem to make absolutely no sense at all. Why on earth, for example, should we pinch out the growing tip of a perfectly healthy seedling or plant stem as a way of encouraging it to fatten up? “Leggy”, after all, is usually a term of admiration rather than opprobrium. Likewise, why would pruning back perfectly healthy shrubs — essentially cutting away their lovely strong shoots and branches- possibly make them bushier and more floriferous when surely it should result in the exact opposite? In the same vein, why is it a good idea to shear back lavender plants that are only just beginning to fluff up again after a long, dark and dismal winter? And what, oh what, is the Chelsea chop, which sounds to the uninitiated like some form of plant abuse?

With basils, we always think about a stubby plant that’s growing in a small pot on a sunny windowsill. What if we tell you that it can be trained to grow like a 4-6 feet tall specimen? Sounds impossible? Well, it’s not!

Brazil’s rich floral diversity, with over 55,000 plant species, offers a plethora of options that you can add to your garden and home. Here are some of the most eye-catching Brazilian flowers you can grow!

You can add grit and gravel, but at the end of the day, you can’t control the weather, and most of the plants will start rotting if kept in wet soil. Also, a sloppy growing medium or a soil with poor drainage can be a problem for many green specimens, but not for these shrubs that like wet soil!

From online services to big box stores and local nurseries and garden centers, there are tons of different ways you can find and purchase plants to add to your landscape. Often, it’s a matter of finding the balance between convenience and quality. But is one option truly better than all the others? 

This week’s Q&A has prompted me to sing the praises of wall shrubs, that group of plants that usefully straddle the common ground between true climbers (plants with lax stems that twist and weave their way upwards, using walls or the branches of other plants as a scaffold) and traditional woody ornamental shrubs.

Q: We got raised flower beds built last year to surround our patio, but have yet to have much success with planting them. I’m wondering what could you advise what to plant to a) offer some height to the area; and b) to be relatively fast growing, to fill out the gaps in the beds, and maybe offer a nice smell? Part of the area gets full sun, and part is shaded. FR, Dublin

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Mention Mediterranean gardens and you’re likely to imagine alfresco dining, soft colour palettes, citrus trees in terracotta pots and sun-loving perennials, all awash with the heady scents of herbs such as lavender and thyme. But you don’t need to travel to Greece or Italy to enjoy this kind of outdoor living. Mediterranean-style gardens are becoming more popular in the UK as many areas become more susceptible to drought, due to the climate crisis. Planting with species that have naturally evolved to live in hot, dry conditions means your garden will be more resilient in dry periods and more sustainable in its use of water – an extremely precious resource during our increasingly hot summers.

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If you’re looking for a surefire way to elevate your cocktails and non-alcoholic beverages without having to buy an entire bar’s worth of special cocktail accessories, the easiest—and most effective—approach is to focus on the ice. Elevated ice is having a steaming-hot moment: Clear ice and flavored ice cubes have both frozen their way into our hearts, ensuring that no drink should be boring or watered down. And now, we’re putting our own twist on the upscale ice trend with Cherry Tomato-Basil Ice Cubes.

We love a good before-and-after on the GPOD. Getting to see what a gardener started with really shows the work, talent, and time that goes into creating every garden we feature on the GPOD. So today we’re going to share some of our favorite glow-ups.

One group of plants you can use to create a blooming bridge between spring and summer are azaleas (Rhododendron spp. and cvs., Zones 3–9). As one of the most popular shrubs in the southeastern United States, they can last for generations with proper establishment and care. On the flip side, poor cultural practices can lead gardeners to disappointment. There are many types: native, nonnative, hybrids, reblooming, evergreen, and deciduous. No matter which type you choose, many of the basics for growing great azaleas stay relatively consistent.

It’s unusual to find a shrub or tree with blue flowers, so if you’re looking for a shock of blue to light up your garden, look no further than a ceanothus. When in flower it’s a stunning sight, smothered in flowers in shades that range from powder blue to deep azure.

No one likes prying eyes and the best way to protect your home from them is to grow some plants to have a green curtain. Keeping that in mind, we bring you some of the most beautiful evergreen shrubs for privacy that stay under 6 feet!

If you want a quick and eco-friendly solution to get a privacy screen around your Texas home, these fast growing shrubs are your best bet!

Ambrosia beetles are common, tiny (only about 1/16” long), and can infest hundreds of different woody plant species. In South Carolina, these little beetles typically infest stressed trees, vines, or shrubs. Females will bore into stems and branches, creating a gallery. Beetles carry fungi on their bodies, and this fungus then grows inside the galleries, often appearing as white, gray, or black. The beetles feed on the fungus that grows inside the galleries.

Before you stop at your tracks and think, hey! Aren’t these toxic? Wait! Well, they are, but if you are a connoisseur of plants and want to have something different in your collection while being mindful of the safety, these aren’t bad at all!

You can grow these herbs and spices from cuttings and divisions very easily without waiting too long for the harvest! A sunny windowsill will be more than apt for most of these!

I am often asked by clients if I can make their small garden feel bigger. There are some easy tricks that will help. You can create a journey by changing the direction of a path or introduce a level change. Reflections that trick the eyes, false entrances, hidden zones and borrowed landscapes will also help to make your garden feel larger. Even a balcony can feel more spacious if you keep the floor space clear, avoid too much clutter and use the vertical surfaces for planting. Wall mirrors can trick the eye into thinking the space is bigger, too. Or, if you want to be creative, how about painting a landscape mural on a wall or commissioning an artist to do this?

Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page.

If you’ve run into a garden rut, we’ve got you covered. It’s time to start planning for your first trip to the local nursery or garden center. What plants will you need for a new garden area? Are you noticing a lack of excitement or color outside (we call this the midspring slump)? Just itching for an exciting new addition to a well-established bed? Now is the time to make a list of the perennials, shrubs, and/or trees that will fill those needs.

If you’ve run into a garden rut, we’ve got you covered. It’s time to start planning for your first trip to the local nursery or garden center. What plants will you need for a new garden area? Are you noticing a lack of excitement or color outside (we call this the midspring slump)? Just itching for an exciting new addition to a well-established bed? Now is the time to make a list of the perennials, shrubs, and/or trees that will fill those needs.

If you’ve run into a garden rut, we’ve got you covered. It’s time to start planning for your first trip to the local nursery or garden center. What plants will you need for a new garden area? Are you noticing a lack of excitement or color outside (we call this the midspring slump)? Just itching for an exciting new addition to a well-established bed? Now is the time to make a list of the perennials, shrubs, and/or trees that will fill those needs.

Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page.

If you’ve run into a garden rut, we’ve got you covered. It’s time to start planning for your first trip to the local nursery or garden center. What plants will you need for a new garden area? Are you noticing a lack of excitement or color outside (we call this the midspring slump)? Just itching for an exciting new addition to a well-established bed? Now is the time to make a list of the perennials, shrubs, and/or trees that will fill those needs.

If you’ve run into a garden rut, we’ve got you covered. It’s time to start planning for your first trip to the local nursery or garden center. What plants will you need for a new garden area? Are you noticing a lack of excitement or color outside (we call this the midspring slump)? Just itching for an exciting new addition to a well-established bed? Now is the time to make a list of the perennials, shrubs, and/or trees that will fill those needs.

From the lone Irish yew tree, first discovered growing in Co Fermanagh in the 18th century, whose countless offspring now flourish in gardens all over the world, to the great Irish gardeners, garden makers, planthunters and plantspeople who have made valuable contributions to the world of horticulture, we have many reasons to be proud of our unique gardening tradition. Here are some suitably horticultural ways to celebrate Ireland’s “40 shades of green”.

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