Landscaping
Trees, Shrubs, and Vines
Woody plants are a permanent, year-long presence in the landscape. This permanence helps determine their major uses.
Consider the landscape as if it were a living room. The floor would be formed by low-growing plants and ground-hugging constructions, like lawns and ground covers, patios and pavement. They form the base of any landscape. But what about the rest of the landscape, the walls and ceiling? That’s where trees, shrubs, and climbing plants come in.
Walls
Shrubs and vines, as well as related constructions such as fences, form the walls of the room. They help define its boundaries, separating your yard from your neighbor’s and one garden area from another. This is most obvious when plants are grown as a hedge, but even informal plantings of shrubs will help define bounds between various areas.
A simple cluster of shrubs, for example, can separate the children’s play area from a quiet rest area or the service area with its shed, garbage cans, and clothesline. Formal hedges, because of the obvious barrier they create, are most often used to define property lines.
Shrubs can also offer a screen for privacy, or they can block unsightly views. Deciduous shrubs are good choices for screening: They offer privacy during the summer months yet allow a maximum amount of winter sunlight to penetrate your yard at a season when light is at a premium. If the goal of the screen is to block an undesirable view, evergreens — both conifers and broad-leaf — are the plants of choice, since their cover is permanent. Taller shrubs can also be used as windbreaks or to create a bit of shade in an overly sunny spot.
Vines are used much like shrubs, except they must grow on some sort of support, such as a fence or trellis. A hedge may need many years to grow high enough to block a view. You can create the same effect in a year or two by planting a vining plant at the base of a fence. If you can’t put up an attractive fence, a simple chain-link one with vines planted at the base will offer security without being obtrusive.
Vines are also useful in places where space is lacking. Most shrubs quickly attain a diameter of three to five feet; this can seem a waste of space in a tiny urban yard. Vines grow vertically: Most cling so closely to their support that they take up only inches of horizontal space.
For security purposes, you might want your wall to be composed of plants with spiny leaves or branches. A fire thorn or barberry hedge, for example, can be as effective a barrier as a chain-link fence but far more attractive.
Ceilings
After the “floor” and “walls” have been taken care of, the outdoor living room needs a ceiling. Although the sky can serve as an outdoor ceiling, it can be too much of a good thing. The vastness of the sky keeps a garden from feeling intimate.
Trees block out part of the sky, defining the sky’s borders. Trees also contribute structure to the garden. Trunks and branches act as posts and beams to bring the sky down to a more human scale. For this management of the sky, trees have a purpose in every landscape, even the smallest one.
Trees have other uses as well. No other characteristic of trees is as obvious in the landscape as the shade they provide. Through their ability to filter sunlight and to cool the air through evapotranspiration, leaves can reduce the temperature by up to 10 degrees Fahrenheit on a hot summer day. Shade also protects from excess sun that can annoy your eyes and be dangerous for the skin. So every garden should have at least one shady nook. Some trees are known as “shade trees.” These are usually taller trees with a broad crown. Smaller trees can also provide plentiful shade, although you may prefer to remove some of the lower branches for sitting.
Putting It all Together
With the structure of your “living room” — floor, walls, and outdoor ceiling — now clearly defined by the lawns and woody plants it contains, you have the base on which to build your landscape. All you have left to add is the “furniture”: flower beds, accent plants, and the like.
Defining Woody Plants
Woody plants come in all shapes and sizes, from tall and upright to low and creeping. Aside from producing wood, these plants have one thing in common: persistent stems, meaning the stems survive from one year to the next. This distinguishes woody plants from herbaceous (nonwoody) plants like perennials, which die back to the ground each year. Although many woody plants lose their leaves in the winter or dry season, the stems survive and produce new leaves the following year. Trees, shrubs, and most vines are woody plants, but the boundaries between each group are not always clear.
Trees Versus Shrubs
Although most people recognize a tree when they see one, defining what does and does not constitute a tree is not easy. This is particularly the case when distinguishing between a tall shrub and a small tree.
One common definition of a tree is a perennial plant that bears only one single woody stem (the trunk) at ground level. Size is not a determining factor in this definition. A tree can reach 100 feet or more in height or only one foot for miniatures. In practice, however, a very small tree is likely to be treated as a shrub. Woody shrubs have several stems rising from ground level. Shrubs are also usually smaller, often 3 to 12 feet tall. There are many obvious exceptions, such as trees with multiple trunks that can be very hard to distinguish from tall shrubs. Other plants can be either trees or shrubs depending on how they are grown. These general definitions, however, do help to distinguish between the two groups.
Humans also influence plant growth by pruning and other practices. For example, a gardener may prune off all the secondary stems of a shrub, leaving one to three main trunks, thus creating a “standard” (tree-form shrub). A gardener may also repeatedly cut back young trees, forcing them to branch at their base, turning them into shrubs. Nature does the same thing. Some plants that normally grow as trees will take on a shrub form at the northern limits of their range. Each winter their top growth is pruned back by cold, causing them to develop multiple branches rather than a main trunk. Subshrubs are plants with woody stems, yet they die back at least part way to their roots each year. Subshrubs are usually treated as perennials. Some true shrubs, such as butterfly bush, will behave as subshrubs in cold or extreme climates.
Vines
Vines can be separated into three main categories: woody vines, with permanent above-ground stems; perennial vines, which die back to the ground each winter and then sprout again in spring; and annual vines, which start anew from seed each year. A woody vine can be considered a shrub that needs some sort of support to grow well. Some woody vine (including many types of clematis) die back to the ground each year, just as subshrubs do, especially under harsh climatic conditions. Only woody vines are covered in this section.
Deciduous or Evergreen?
Trees, shrubs, and woody vine are classified as either deciduous or evergreen. Deciduous woody plants usually lose their leaves in the fall. In warmer climates leaf loss can occur at other times in the year, notably at the onset of the dry season. Evergreen plants remain clothed in foliage throughout the year. They do lose their leaves, but gradually rather than all at once; they are never completely barren. Some woody plants are classified as semievergreens. Their leaves are persistent in most conditions but fall off in harsh ones, especially in cold or very dry climates. Deciduous plants often have attractive fall colors. Evergreens present a continuous display of green foliage, even when deciduous plants are bare.
The term “evergreen” is often mistakenly thought to pertain strictly to conifers (cone-bearing plants). This is not the case. There are broad-leaf evergreens, including boxwoods and most rhododendrons, and deciduous conifers, such as larches and bald cypress. In many plant catalogs, woody plants are divided into three categories as to their foliage: deciduous, broad-leaf evergreens, and needled evergreens.
Source: Curb Appeals Blog
Landscaping
Curb Appeal Tip: Do Some Landscaping
Flowers and bushes greatly improve a home’s curb appeal. Also flowers and bushes can hide parts of your home that aren’t so beautiful. You can either do this yourself or you can hire someone. Either way, this is a step that will improve your curb appeal and create market value in the process. If you do this step yourself, create flower beds on either side of your front entrance and either fill them with flowers or bushes. Potential buyers may love bushes, because they are a great place to hang Christmas lights and they provide privacy. If you hire someone, be prepared to pay hundreds or even a couple thousand for your yard to look amazing.
Source: Curb Appeals
Landscaping
Shrubs for carefree landscaping
Choosing Shrubs
Shrubs are among the most useful and colorful group of landscape plants. Choosing shrubs isn’t always easy. Most garden centers and retail stores will have the most common shrubs available. Don’t be content with the ordinary. Some of the newer and the unusual shrubs have a lot to offer. These will make your landscape more interesting.
Are you tired of azaleas that bloom in the spring and look like green globs the rest of the year? If so, look for Encore azaleas. These wonderful plants were hybridized by Robert Edward Lee of Louisiana. He created these repeat bloomers, which is very unusual for azaleas. The Encore include the Autumn Series, which is perfectly suited to the Carolinas. In the series are eight different multiple-blooming azaleas. After flowering in the spring, the shoots produce new flower buds that will open in mid-summer.
The weigelas were once thought of as very old-fashioned shrubs. That was before Wine & Roses was released. This award wining plant has lovely dark-burgundy-purple foliage that seems to shimmer like wine. The leaves retain their beautiful color, creating seasonal interest throughout the summer. Midnight Wine is similar.
A very unusual Japanese holly, called Sky Pencil, is now available. The name describes Sky Pencil’s exotic shape. You may have thought you didn’t have space for a Japanese holly, but this one will prove you do. It grows to ten feet in height but is only two to three feet wide. This evergreen is multi-stemmed, and needs no pruning. Use it as a specimen plant or as a hedge. With its formal shape, it is great for foundation plantings. Like most Japanese hollies, Sky Pencil prefers a slightly acid soil. This wonderful plant was discovered in the wild in Japan. It came to the attention of scientists from the National Arboretum visiting Japan during a plant-collecting trip. They propagated it and made plants available to
The crape myrtles are one of my favorite groups of plants. Some of the better ones are mildew resistant. These beauties were bred by Dr. Donald R. Egolf of the National Arboretum. Their parentage includes seed-grown plants from Japan, which were immune to mildew. Whether crape myrtle is a tree or shrub depends on the size and how you grow it. The smaller ones like Tonto can be grown as shrubs. It is about twelve feet high and about as wide, has deep red blooms that last for several months. Its foliage becomes maroon in the autumn. Acoma, only about ten to twelve feet in height can have an even greater width. Its white blossoms last for several months. The branches can be almost weeping in form. The foliage assumes purplish red tones in the fall.
The loropetalums are a rarely used group of shrubs. Perhaps part of the problem is the name. Unlike most plants, it lacks a common name. Its Latin name, Loropoetalum chinense, indicates its origins as it is from China. Loropetalum are outstanding broadleaf evergreens. The newer introductions tend to have maroon foliage and pink blossoms. Examples would include Burgundy and Razzleberri with pink blossoms. It can be used as either a ground cover or shrub. Its ground cover-like growth habit means it could be used en masse as a ground cover. Yet it does produce upright arching shoots as well. So it could be used as a flowering hedge. Given good growing conditions, loropetalums can get quite tall. Loropetalums have such a wonderful shape that it rarely ever needs pruning. If using them for a hedge, I would give them plenty of room so they never needed any pruning at all.
If you’re looking for a formal hedge, use something like cherry laurel or podocarpus, also called Japanese yew. Naturally the Leyland cypress is suitable for hedges, but some experts are concerned it might become overused. This could then lead to problems.
Whether you choose the abelias, azaleas, or loropetalums, shrubs have an important place in the home landscape.
Source: Curb Appeals