Shrubs

Looking for some great foliage interest in your shade or filtered sun that isn't hostas or painted ferns?  How about Lamium 'Purple Dragon?'  It's a real survivor, thriving across six zones (3-8), and it produces big, beautiful clusters of purple flowers for many weeks.  The eye-catching silvery-white leaves shade quickly to dark green around the interesting toothed edges.  This groundcover perennial is drought-resistant and evergreen, too, so you'll have this beautiful foliage year-round.

For a different look, try Kolkwitzia amabilis Dream Catcher (yes, I spelled that right).  This Beauty Bush does well in filtered sun or part shade in zones 4-9 and is deer-resistant, so it's a great choice for many different gardens.  It's rich coppery color seasons to bright yellow in Spring and Summer, and by fall it turns a rich golden-orange with interesting dark tips.  It's amazing as a specimen, but even better in mass plantings for a really eye-drawing effect unlike any other.

I was just looking around over in our Wayside Gardens Garden Center, and I happened upon some fantastic Sweetshrub.  I asked one of our helpful Master Gardeners about the plant, and she told me that it’s x Sinocalycalycanthus ‘Hartlage Wine,’ a crossbreed of Chinese Sweetshrub and our native Carolina Allspice.  All of these shrubs are descended from a single plant bred at the Raulston Arboretum in the early 1990’s.  The plant is named "Hartlage" after the undergraduate student, Richard Hartlage, who was in charge of the experiment ("Wine" comes from the blossom color).  It really is a rare find, because it is a hybrid with all of the best traits of both stock plants from which it was bred.  Like the Carolina Allspice, it is a hardy, vigorous shrub, but it has the large blooms and leaves of the Chinese Sweetshrub.  The buds that start to come out in spring burst into large, brilliant red blooms that will be the envy of your neighborhood, especially against the backdrop of the shrub’s lovely glossy foliage.  That foliage changes to a soft yellow in fall, which can be almost as beautiful as the flowers themselves.  Plus, because it’s an unusual shrub, you’ll most likely be the first on your block to have one!

If you're looking for a plant to add interest to your landscape in the winter, you can't do much better than Corylus 'Contorta.'  This interesting shrub takes its unusual common name, Harry Lauder's Walking Stick, from the crooked cane that the legendary Scottish entertainer, Sir Harry Lauder, often used as a performance prop in the early 1900's.  It's a well-deserved moniker, as the Contorta produces some of the most interestingly twisted, corkscrew-like branches of any shrub I've ever seen.  It is an interesting and unusual shrub when it's wearing its leaves in the warm months whose berries are very attractive to birds, but it really comes into its own when it sheds the leaves in the cool part of the year, and those pig's-tail branches are unveiled.  The Contorta looks its best when featured as a specimen, especially when its silhouette is contrasted strongly by a backdrop of snow.  It's a good thing, then, that this unusual shrub is cold-hardy all the way to Zone 3, where the snow is plentiful and the need for winter landscape interest is greatest.  This shrub is a quick-grower, too, that will generally reach a height of around seven feet tall. 

Around here many of us tend to think of Azaleas as a feature primarily of Southern gardens.  Maybe that's because Azaleas are so closely associated with the Masters Golf Tournament (which is played just sixty miles from our Greenwood, South Carolina home), or it could be that many Southerners occasionally assume that anything that they really like must come from the South.  Either way, one thing that I can tell you for sure is that hardy Azaleas are becoming a more and more popular choice outside of the Deep South, and for good reason.  They're the perfect low-maintenance flowering shrub for just about any part-shade area that isn't exposed to harsh winds.  They flower heavily for weeks, usually only need one deep watering a week in drought, and require no pruning to flower.  Many are evergreen, and some, such as the Azalea 'Golden Lights,' thrive all the way to zone 4.

Plant your Azalea bushes shallow.  Their root structures are shallow, and they won't do well too deep.  A good rule of thumb is to just plant them to the same depth as the nursery had them.  They like loose, well-drained soil, so if you're planting them in clay or hard-pack, dig some of that up and add compost, peat, or sand to the soil.  Because the roots are shallow, give them some room without competition. 
Azaleas prefer acidic soil, so if your soil is neutral or alkaline, you would do well to add a bit of sulfer to it to bring that pH up (you're looking for a little over 4.5).  Also, if you're planting them next to a lot of cement, keep an eye on your pH from time to time, as the cement breaking down can add lime to the soil.  Azaleas do best with mulch down to protect them from the cold in winter and to retain some moisture in the summer.  Around here pine straw is the most common mulch used with Azaleas.  It provides great protection, it's inexpensive, it looks natural, and it breaks down enough that it will usually do all the fertilizing that your Azalea bushes need.  You shouldn't need to prune your Azaleas except to shape it to your liking or if it happens to get a dead branch, but if you do prune it do so in the middle or late summer, after the shrub is done flowering.  July is probably best for most areas.  Do not prune later than the end of July unless you have to, as once the weather starts to cool the shrub starts producing its buds for next year's flowers. 

To protect your roses this winter:

1. Begin at the end of fall by mounding soil or a good mulch around stems about 1 foot deep.  Remove the mound gradually with your garden hose as new growth starts in the spring. 
2. Feed your roses with a handful of a complete fertilizer per bush. 
3. Water thoroughly, and  Mulch with hay, straw, or bark to conserve moisture and hold down weeds which will give your roses a better chance to bounce back as the weather warms. 
4. Fertilize monthly during the active growing season until mid-summer to make your plant stronger and ready for the next hard winter.

Roses are naturally hardy vigorous plants, with some wild climbing varieties reaching 60 feet or higher and thriving in the harshest conditions. And, since the introduction of the Knock Out Rose in 2000, breeders have focused on bringing out the innate strength of roses, making some of the hardiest disease resistant roses ever seem. But, there are some conditions that even the strongest plants struggle to surmount. If you are a rose gardener in a colder area, you know how hard it can be for roses to thrive in the spring following a hard winter.

Clematis Sweet Autumn is a wonderful treat for anyone who wants to extend the life of their garden. This fall blooming vine will reach up to 30 feet covering your garden with bushy white fragrant blooms. With silvery seed-heads and beautiful star-shaped flowers, this plants will really show out once it gets going.

It usually takes a couple seasons for Clematis Sweet Autumn to establish, but once it does, it is hardy and fairly low maintenance. It will perform best if the roots are shaded and the top part of the plant gets full sun. This will be the star of any garden from late summer to fall.