Hey guys, JayDee here, one of the Garden Guys,
and today I wanted to focus on five of my favorite large shrubs.
Though, large is a very relative term.
So, in my mind large means anything bigger than me.
Six to 12, maybe 15 feet tall, and equally wide.
So, you need a lot of space in your yard for some of these.
First one I want to point out is a Viburnum.
Now, in the nursery industry, there's over a hundred different varieties of
Viburnum sold.
Most commonly, like the snowball bush that your grandma had in her yard.
This is one called Fragrant Viburnum.
If we had smell-o-vision, you'd be amazed right now.
This is a really fragrant shrub.
Most of the Viburnums have this really tight, nice cluster of white flowers.
Again, large shrubs.
Some of them have a really nice fall color, but most of the time, they're, they're
planted for their fragrant white blossoms.
You can't talk about large shrubs for landscapes without talking about the lilac.
There are dozens of different colors of flowers.
This one is a dark purple called Ludwig Spathe.
There's a whole array of different colors, purples, pinks, lavenders, even white.
But this shrub is one of the most adapted shrubs for the Intermountain West.
Very drought tolerant, very beautiful.
In fact, in the nursery industry they're, they're coming up with so many new Lilacs
each year it's hard to keep up with.
A lot of the newer varieties or cultivars are actually dwarf versions of
the same shrub.
So the Korean Lilac, or one called Miss Kim.
They stay about four to five feet, instead of this 12 to 15 foot.
So go to the nursery, check out some of the newer Lilacs, very fragrant, beautiful
larger shrubs.
So another shrub that is kind of older and is kind of hard to find in
the nursery industry nowadays is the Pearl Bush.
But as you can see behind me, when this thing's in full bloom, it's a show stopper.
This is Mother's Day weekend, this is usually when it blooms, it'll, it'll keep
these blooms for a, about a week, and man, this is one of my wife's favorite plants.
So if you can convince your nursery to bring one in for you, obviously you need
some space, but it is a beautiful shrub.
Another large shrub that you might consider for your landscape is
the Elderberry.
Now this one behind me is called Black Beauty.
There's another one very similar, more dainty leaves, a little feathery,
called Black Lace.
These shrubs, the thing I like about them most is they'll bloom, early Spring,
and they'll be in tight pink buds that open up to really nice white blossoms.
So you have a nice Spring color, but then also in the middle of Summer you've got
these dark purple, almost black, leaves, and really tolerant plants.
They're native to the Intermountain West, so very drought tolerant, and you can see
these shrubs are less than five years old.
They grow really quickly.
So, in a landscape, full sun, large shrub for color and interest.
Another really nice shrub for landscapes are the Nine Bark.
They're native to the Intermountain West, and through modern plant breeding programs
they've been able to develop different leaf colors.
This one behind me is Summer Wine.
Can see a nice bronze-purple leaf color.
One behind me, the yellow, is Darts Gold.
A lot of different variety in Nine Barks.
One of the coolest features has to be the Spring blossoms.
Nice clusters of white blossoms cover the shrub, and they have
an exfoliating bark.
The bark peels like paper.
So really nice shrubs, consider those for your landscape.
They prefer a little bit filtered shade, but they can handle some full sun.
So even though it's difficult to narrow down some of my favorite plants,
these are five of some of my favorite larger shrubs.
Thanks for watching.