HGTV.comHGTV.com

Spring Standouts

by Marie Hofer, Gardening editor, HGTV.com

Think of spring shrubs and the usual stalwarts — azaleas, white viburnums and spireas — come to mind. If you're searching for something a little different, however, these shrubs have plenty to offer.

PHOTO

Japanese pieris also comes in dazzling pinks and reds.

Japanese pieris
(Pieris japonica)

If you can provide the right climate for this dressy shade plant, you'll be getting four seasons of show. Bundled ribbons of small, creamy white bell-shaped flowers cascade over the rosettelike evergreen foliage in early spring (and sometimes late winter), and by midsummer the buds for next year's flowers form and remain through the winter. But the plant's showiest part might be its new foliage, which opens bronze to sizzling red, depending on the cultivar, then matures to a satiny dark green.

Dozens of cultivars make the species' green leaves and white flowers almost humdrum. 'White Rim' has creamy leaf margins; 'Flamingo' has deep rosy-red flowers; the dark red buds of 'Dorothy Wycoff' open to pale pink flowers; and plenty of others have red or maroon buds as well: 'Coleman' (pink flowers), 'Captain Blood' (white flowers) and 'Valley Valentine' (deep rosy-pink flowers).

With the exception of dwarf forms such as 'Nana' and 'Temple Bells', Japanese pieris grows slowly to form a mound anywhere from 4 to 12 feet tall and 2/3 as wide.

Give Japanese pieris moist, well-drained, organic, preferably acid, soil in a site sheltered from drying winds, and keep well mulched. In its northern range, Japanese pieris can handle sun; in the South, shade is a must, at least in the afternoon. Remove spent flowers. Reliably hardy in Zones 5 to 7, but can be grown with protection in Zone 4b.

PHOTO

Viburnum plicatum 'Kern's Pink'
Viburnum plicatum 'Kern's Pink'

Have one of these beautiful shrubs in your garden, and you're bound to have visitors asking you what it is. Viburnum plicatum 'Kern's Pink' (also called 'Roseace' and 'Pink Sensation') offers a mix of pink and white flower clusters — plus, a mix of green and rosy-bronzed-tinged foliage — all on the same plant. This broad-spreading shrub, usually a globular form 6 to 10 feet high and wide, is hardy in USDA Zones 5 to 7(8).

PHOTO

Thunberg spirea
Thunberg spirea (Spiraea thunbergii)

After the white, very profuse spring flowers fade, this dense twiggy shrub (the first of the spireas to bloom) becomes clothed in very narrow, yellowish-green leaves, a snappy fine-textured contrast to other spireas. The foliage turns a dull coppery orange in autumn, then drops.

Habit is a spreading mound, tightly packed with artfully arched branching. Pink forms are also available.

The rugged and hardy Thunberg spirea tolerates almost any type of soil but prefers a well-drained acid soil. Give it part to full sun, and prune after flowering to keep it from becoming leggy and open. Mature height: 3 to 5 feet tall and wide but can grow larger. Zones 4 to 8.

PHOTO

The tiny flowers of sweetbox emit a heady fragrance.
PHOTO

The foliage of sweetbox holds all year long.
Sweetbox (Sarcococca hookeriana)

Sweetbox proves its worth with heady early-spring fragrance, not showy flowers (the tiny but aromatic flowers, tucked in the joints between leaf and stem, are hidden by the foliage) and with lustrous, narrow evergreen foliage. But you might appreciate even more this plant's ability to cover ground in shady areas. Spreading via rhizomes, a few sweetbox will knit together and form a dense, finely textured small hedge. Easily controlled and not invasive, sweetbox (also called sarcococca) is particularly useful wherever you want a troublefree but interesting groundcover that also perfumes the garden. S. ruscifolia (fragrant sweetbox) has red fruits, but you have to part the leaves to see them. S. orientalis flowers in the dead of winter.

Sweetbox needs partial to full shade and moist, well-drained soils, preferably acid.

Mature size: 4 to 6 feet high and wide for the species, but what often appears in nurseries is S. hookeriana var. humilis, which grows no more than 2 feet high. S. orientalis climbs to 2-4 feet; S. ruscifolia, 3 feet. Zones 6 to 8 for most sarcococcas, except S. ruscifolia (Zones 7 to 9). S. hookeriana can be pushed to Zone 5 with protection.

HGTV.com
Services Popular Content About
Our Sister Sites

Comparison Shop for Home Decor & Garden Tools at Shopzilla & BizRate

UpMyStreet and uSwitch.com provide UK comparison services.

© 2008 Scripps Networks, LLC. All rights reserved.