3 steps for easy care shrubs

No yard looks complete without shrubs. These hardy additions to your garden act as a great backdrop or features in their own right. These tips will help you choose and grow them with success in your yard.

Long-lived and diverse, the huge variety of shrubs you can choose from display  a range of qualities, including showy flowers, fragrance, fall colour plus food and shelter for wildlife.

Well-placed shrubs can be the most care-free plants in the garden, needing little attention once they become established.

All year beauty

• Azaleas, rhododendrons and bridal wreath spiraea ring in spring with an explosion of early flowers.
• As the mercury rises, warm breezes bear the heavenly scent of lilacs, giving way to that of roses and Clethra.
• Berried shrubs, including holly and viburnum, are examples of the bounty of autumn, a season when other shrubs, such as winged euonymus, display their brightest foliage colours.
• Broad-leaved and needled evergreen shrubs carry the garden through winter.
• As the new year begins, the carmine bark of red-osier dogwood shows its richest hue and witch hazel defies nature by blooming during the coldest part of the year.
• Use shrubs to fill out the space under trees or to feather the edge between wooded and open areas.

A shrub grouping requires little care, and can take the place of trees in small gardens.

A home appears more anchored with a few shrubs around its foundation, and farther from the house shrubs can frame desirable views, screen out undesirable ones or soften the look of walls and fences. Some even thrive in containers so you can shift them around as you wish.

To grow shrubs successfully, you must find the right match for your soil, climate and planting spot.
The plant's requirements must come first, because a shrub that's unhealthy from being grown in an inappropriate spot will never live up to its potential.
Some require no fertilizing or pruning and rarely need watering once established, because the root system grows deep and extensive and has no trouble finding nutrients and moisture.
Some common and easy to care for shrubs include:

• Azalea
• Barberry
• Bluebeard
• Buddleia
• Forsythia
• Holly
• Hydrangea
• Juniper
• Lilac
• Mountain Laurel 
• Red-Osier Dogwood
• Rhododendron
• Roses
• Witch Hazel

Shrubs can form the backbone of garden design. With so many to choose from requiring minimal attention, you can be sure of your selection thriving in your yard with just a little bit of good care.