fall is quickly going to be upon us and that is the perfect time to do
landscaping in your yard do you need some projects done but just
not sure what shrubs just that you want to put in your yard stay
tuned because i have got my top five favorite shrubs
hey friends welcome to gardening with creekside i am jenny and today we are
going to do another little series of my top five favorites
and today it is going to be all about shrubs
so my top five favorite shrubs and they all come
from proven winners today so this again not in any kind of order
because they're all amazing shrubs but this could be my
number one favorite at all so i'll just start with number
one number one is the limelight and little lime
hydrangea now i know technically that is two shrubs
but it's basically the mama and the baby so i consider them
one shrub together limelights and little limes what is the
difference and why are they so amazing well they are both panicle hydrangeas
which means they have those great big cone-shaped kind of football
shaped blooms on them in fact right behind me
is a limelight that we have had in our yard
probably set for somewhere between eight to ten years so you can just see
how amazing it is but obviously limelight gets pretty big it can get
anywhere from six to eight and i dare say
nine feet tall whereas little lime is the more petite
version and only gets three to five feet tall
they are both hearty in zones 3-9 so that is fantastic wide range but they
are great here in our north carolina zone 7b climate another great reason
because they are panicles they always bloom
on new growth what's so special about that
well in late winter you were actually going to prune these hydrangeas back
by a third a fourth and even you could even go more severe
as to like half of the plant this hydrangea behind me
last winter it was like late january into february
i trimmed it back probably by like half of its current size
and it just flushes out in new growth in the springtime obviously since it
blooms on new growth you get all these gorgeous
blooms behind me now when you do prune them in the late
winter again for us in north carolina that's about
late january into early to mid february not only are
you going to prune them but you're also going to go ahead and give them a nice
slow release fertilizer this is just a great
all-purpose one i love using either plant tone
or even rose tone for my hydrangeas they respond really well
now with hydrangeas you do not need to fertilize them
past that point so no weekly water soluble fertilizer they will
actually stop blooming so don't do that but these guys actually also need
sun we think of hydrangeas needing shade some do need shade but again these are
pentacles and they need sun now if you are in
those colder climates those zones i would say like three
through five they can get all day sun full-on sun but
here in the south so zones maybe six through nine
they actually do a lot better if they get some afternoon shade
this sweet thing behind me will get sun all the way
until about one o'clock and then she is in the shade
thereafter this particular one is not on irrigation
but limelights and little limes do like a consistent
source of water and again especially in our southern hot climates if you cannot
give them afternoon shade you've got to give them some water and
then that way they don't burn and your blooms turn
brown but limelights and little limes great
creamy color that will eventually turn to a nice
lime green and then they can even turn to a rose and a pink in the late
fall so number one pick limelight and little lime
hydrangeas number two on the list is miss molly butterfly bush you cannot go
wrong with a gorgeous butterfly bush and miss molly is no exception
she will get to be about four to five feet tall
she is hearty in zones 5 to 9 and she will take all the sun that you
can give her butterfly bushes absolutely thrive in the full hot
hot sun we love miss molly because she is just kind of the perfect size
around that four to five foot range these gorgeous raspberry colored blooms
that the butterflies the pollinators your hummingbirds
absolutely flock to butterfly bushes again are very
heat and drought tolerant and what's really unique about the miss
molly is that this is a non-invasive species so i know for some folks
on our west coast this can be a big deal with your butterfly bushes
because they can be highly invasive miss molly is
not an invasive species so that is wonderful news and that
you can have her in your garden too also they like to
have a nice sharp prune in the late winter so like our limelights and our
little limes you need to prune them back you need to
not it's a suggestion but you need to prune
them in that late winter again because they bloom on new growth
so make sure that you prune them back pretty heavy
a butterfly bush can easily be pruned back by half of its size
fertilizer not so much they don't really care about
a good source of food that is just how low maintenance they are
very easy the bugs do not like them we love
miss molly so if you are looking to bring some big pops of color in your
sunny location in your yard and you're looking to attract the
pollinators you need to go grab you one of miss molly
number three on the list is sprinter boxwood now i know some of you have some
very strong opinions about boxwoods and i suppose i can understand
why well sprinter i think is going to break
down all those barriers for you because possibly you don't like boxwoods
because they can get diseases or maybe you find
boxwoods are going to be a little bit smelly well guess what
sprinterboxwood isn't actually a japanese
boxwood as opposed to an english boxwood a lot of times around here we are used
to english boxwoods they have those really strong smell to
them i personally love them i think i like
them because when i was a child we go to the mountains
and they had boxwoods everywhere so those are some fond memories for me
but i understand that some of you just cannot stand the smell of a boxwood well
that's an english boxwood these are japanese
boxwoods so there's no smell also it is
highly resistant to any kind of diseases including
the boxwood blight i know here we've had many issues with customers that have
lost all of their boxwoods due to this
disease well sprinter boxwood is resistant to that so
that is a fantastic news it will grow to be anywhere two to four
feet tall and wide it is easily shaped it does not
get out of control although it is a fast
grower so it will fill in your space pretty quickly
but once it reaches its mature height it's going to be nice and contained
and stay there they are hardy in zones five to nine and
they can do sun or shade what's not to love
an evergreen that can do sun or shade does great in a container
it obviously does great in the landscape i know we have customers at the nursery
a lot of times looking to put something as a centerpiece in a large container
sprinter would be wonderful and then you can switch around
the bottom of it for your annuals so that would be a great centerpiece to put
in there for your large containers they also
because they're fast growers that two to four foot
mark as far as size they will do a great hedge so if you are looking to form fill
in a nice little hedge and make a hedge like a formal garden
then sprinter would be a wonderful choice for you
to choose from it is actually we're talking about this an improved version
of the old-timey winter gem boxwood so it is a more improved
faster growing than winter gym which you may be familiar with
so if you are looking for a fantastic evergreen shrub for your sun or
shade garden you might want to consider consider sprinter
boxwood number four on the list is pearl glam
beautyberry love this plant obviously it's my top five it will give
you three seasons of interest absolutely a
fantastic shrub that will actually be a little bit
taller than it is wide it is hardy in zones three to
eight and it will get to be four to five feet
tall but three to four feet wide
in the spring from spring summer and fall it puts on this beautiful
purple hued foliage very very nice and then in the summertime it will be
covered in little white blooms then we head into fall those
white blooms will actually turn into an orchid colored little berry
hence the name beauty berry because it will just the
stems will be actually just covered in these gorgeous deep
rich purple berries the birds love them they are fantastic for your
garden because they are more upright than they are wide you could use
it as kind of a as a specimen plant or even put a couple
of them together to form a kind of like a privacy hedge
and just a little enclosed area in your yard also another great reason to have
beauty berry in your garden is that they are a natural mosquito
repellent yes they will actually repel mosquitoes
from your yard and so they have been used in the south
for many years beauty berries have to repel those mosquitoes so pearl glam
is going to be the exact same thing they bloom on new growth
typically you don't really have to prune the pearl glam but if you need to you
don't have to worry about that again you can do it in late fall and
excuse me late winter and not worry about losing
your blooms for that season also it was a great
introduction for the south because it was actually developed
by dr ranny at nc state university so dr tom i hope i said your last name right
but we appreciate you at north carolina state university
creating this pearl glam beauty berry for us because she is an
absolute gorgeous shrub that we love having in our garden
and rounding out my top five favorite shrubs
for the south is the chiffon rose of sharon
series y'all these are absolutely gorgeous roses of sharon they come in
three different colors there is white there is blue and there
is magenta so they come in just these gorgeous colors the white is the purest
white bloom i have ever seen if you're looking to do a moon garden or bring
some space some lightness and some airiness to a space
you've got to get the white chiffon absolutely gorgeous
all three of these have a very fluffy center to them
just a really delicate sweet bloom on it just makes a big impact the blue is just
an exquisite shade of blue and then magenta magenta is new this year
just this rich hot pink absolutely gorgeous now
things with the chiffon series of rows of sharon roses of sharon can
get big tall so they can get like eight to twelve feet tall
and they can get four to six feet wide now if you are looking for kind of a
privacy screen between you and your neighbors you love your neighbors
they're great but you need just a little bit of privacy
these would be fantastic three five seven of them planted in a row and you
would just have this wall of massive color all summer long because
they are very long bloomers just week after week
after week they just keep putting on blooms just
like so a rose of sharon is a type of hibiscus
and just like perennial hibiscus hearty hibiscus those blooms only last for one
day same thing with the rows of sharon but
there's just so many buds that it's just this continuous cycle of
new growth and all these new blooms they do bloom
on new growth so if you need to give them a little prune
in the late winter you can do that again if you feel like you need to fertilize
use that slow release fertilizer at that time when you prune them in late winter
and you won't have to worry about doing it again they
are just absolutely gorgeous they have they are i didn't tell you zones five to
nine so again we have a nice range of a
growing zone that you can use them in these roses of sharon have little to no
seed set so again kind of like butterfly bushes
for certain areas of the country people get worried and concerned about
roses of sharon that they're going to have babies all over the place
not so with the chiffon series because they do have that fluffy little center
that means they have they produce very little seeds so you don't really have to
worry about them spreading all through your garden
they are low maintenance high performers they thrive in the heat and the drought
because you know here in the south it's like all or nothing i mean you have
high heat high humidity you either have no rain or you have a ton of rain
they do well and all of those situations even our beloved christine she had a
massive flood in her backyard from this massive rain
she thought she lost her blue chiffon i mean it just looked
awful because it sat in water for a couple of days
as soon as it dried out it just came back to life and now it is full of
blooms so they are very hardy very resilient
and do really well in our climate
and then of course they attract those hummingbirds and the butterflies
galore to them now one thing that i want to mention about
all of these shrubs minus the hydrangea is that they are
all deer resistant so miss molly sprinter chiffon and
pearl glam are all deer resistant which we get tons of people asking about our
plants deer resistance well these are so that is a win-win
but hopefully this is giving you some ideas
some inspiration for your garden this fall
maybe you can want to do all of them that's fantastic maybe one just stuck
out in your brain well that's wonderful mission
accomplished i hope you have enjoyed this video make sure that you like this
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welcome to the family y'all have a fantastic day and we will
see you next time thanks so much friends bye