Ornamental Plants

About

Ornamental shrubs are the working middle layer of a garden, the plants between lawn and canopy that carry flowers and foliage colour for most of the year. Here that means hydrangeas, camellias, photinia, loropetalum, nandina, heuchera, rosemary, cordylines and more, from small tubestock fillers to two metre feature shrubs. Choose for a succession of interest rather than one big spring moment, and check each listing's position notes, because this group splits cleanly between sun lovers and shade dwellers. How to choose an ornamental shrub Decide first whether the job is flowers or foliage. Flowering shrubs give a season of colour and eleven months of green: think hydrangeas in summer, gaura from spring to autumn, and camellias holding the winter shift. Foliage shrubs work every single day: loropetalum in burgundy, nandina colouring through red and lime, heuchera in caramel and plum, photinia with its glossy red new growth. The strongest borders run both, an evergreen foliage backbone with flowering plants threaded through it. Then check mature size honestly. This collection spans 30cm heuchera mounds to 4m photinia and camellias, and a shrub in the wrong size class becomes a pruning job forever. Building a border with no off season Succession is the trick professionals use and home gardeners skip. Aim for something opening in every quarter: camellias from autumn through winter, loropetalum and polygala in spring, hydrangeas, gaura and society garlic through summer, then nandina and heuchera foliage carrying autumn into winter. Repeat each variety in groups of three or five rather than planting one of everything. A border of eight varieties repeated reads as designed; a border of twenty singles reads as a trolley dash. Matching shrubs to your climate Tropical and subtropical gardens lean on cordylines, crotons, ficus and society garlic, with hydrangeas performing well in shaded, sheltered beds. Warm temperate gardens grow nearly the whole collection, with camellias an