Shrub border

A successful tree and shrub border begins by carefully evaluating your landscape site, creating a plan and selecting the right plants.

Shrub borders use a variety of shrubs and are designed to be more decorative than useful. Plant an array of shrub sizes and shapes in the border. Start with a back drop of larger shrubs.

On a shrub border, a gravel or chipped bark mulch will last longer than compost or manure.

Uses: Shrub border, potted accent, possible renewable fuel source
Bad Habits: Milky sap in stems and leaves causes stomach distress if swallowed, may cause dermatitis
Cost: $ to $$ -- inexpensive ...

The fourth side has a mixed shrub border to screen it from the adjacent property.

In vegetable gardens, as well as shrub borders, avoid use of broad-leaved weed killers containing 2,4-D and/or dicamba. The fumes alone can injure your plants.

Behind the house, a large, curving shrub border (1) is planted with blue spruce, viburnum, a small cherry tree, boxwood, and a mass of blue carpet juniper. A grass bed (2) comes into its own in late summer and fall.

Serviceberries are compact enough to include in a shrub border or foundation grouping. They make a graceful contribution to the edge of a woodland, mixing well with dogwood and redbud.

Hulls from cocoa, buckwheat, and cottonseed are useful around shrub borders, flower beds, and rose gardens. Decorative, with a richly textured appearance, hulls are expensive and blow or wash away easily necessitating frequent replenishment.

Although it's possible to mix any number of roses in with a shrub border, it's far easier to be lavish with that attention if they are segregated in a small bed.

They can be mixed with shrub borders, planted as edgings, or used with mulches as alternatives to turf areas. Perennials and annuals that meet the low-water requirements of xeriscaping are available at most nurseries and Garden centers.

Want to add edible plants to an existing rose garden or shrub border? Herbs are tops when it comes to companion planting. Herbs and edible flowers.
Your favorite herbs are very likely to cluster themselves by what kind of kitchen you run.

Shrub borders and ground-covering perennials are the easiest options but it is vital that you choose plants that are appropriate for the climate and soil conditions, so that they thrive when left largely to their own devices.

How to use it: Place hydrangeas in the shrub border where its summer flower show can be appreciated and its less-than-great winter form recedes into the background.
'Penny Mac'
Selected mophead cultivars: ...

Planting: Looks best in a mixed-shrub border.
'Pipsqueak' Burning Bush
Intense, crimson-red foliage make this compact shrub a must-have in landscapes that need a pop of color.

It's a living framework that makes trees, flowerbeds and shrub borders look their best. Lawns are the ideal carpet for outdoor recreation and entertaining.

They look nice mixed in a shrub border or flower garden. They do their best growth in moist soils in full sun.

This peaceful little cul-de-sac at the end of a shrub border is made a destination by the cheery red chairs. Kind of makes you smile just to see them. And look how much more interesting the trees become because of the contrast.

It grows to around 5m but its numerous lower branches give it a bushy feel. It is an ideal tree for a shrub border or as a feature plant. Grow it in moderately fertile, moist but well drained soil in full sun or partial shade.

Larch (Larix species), a conifer, sheds its warm orange-yellow needles as trees drop their leaves in fall. Dwarf selections such as L. deciduas 'Pendula' and L. kaempferi 'Nana' are perfect for a shrub border; ...

In the landscape it is useful as a screen, a component of the mixed shrub border or as a specimen.

This past spring I planted a ribbon of Siberian pear trees and additional groves of larch and flowering crabapples, as well as mixed shrub borders.

If you are laying a stone walkway, you could grow ground covers between the stones to add beauty as well as stability. They will also serve as a living mulch, suppressing weeds and retaining soil moisture, when planted in shrub borders.

Among sun lovers that can take some shade is Fothergilla gardenii (dwarf witch alder) with its fragrant bottlebrush flowers in spring and fine coppery foliage in fall. A good example of "vice-versa" is Hydrangea, a classic staple of the shrub border.

See also: Border, Shrub, Plant, Flower, Spring