Welcome back! By now you have a good sense as to what kind of plants to look for at your next visit to Sunnyside Gardens. Specimen plants add unique interest; companion plants provide season long color; and massing plants provide color, texture and bloom in numbers. There’s just one more group we’d like to tell you about this week: foliage.

One does not need to rely on flowers to add color to their garden. Shrubs come in a variety of textures, colors, shapes and sizes. Need an area brightened up? The Ivory Halo Dogwood has light green leaves with white edges. A Pygmy Barberry has bright crimson leaves and can make a statement or modestly had color to your landscape.  Boxwoods planted in a line grow into lush green hedges and require little pruning to keep them looking nice. Shrubs can also provide winter interest to an otherwise barren landscape. Some deciduous shrub’s (shrubs that loose their leaves) branches turn colors and contrast beautifully with the snowfall.

These plants are merely suggestions. Take time to visit our garden center to discover your options. A great resource to consider is the Perennial Plant Association’s website. These perennials are hardy and known to be excellent performers.

One last tid-bit: take care to look at the plant’s mature size listed on the tag. Plants grow. Properly spacing perennials and shrubs is key to having a happy and healthy garden in the future.

We’d like to share a simple drawing of a layout that you could implement into the corner of your own yard. The drawing features all of the groups of plants mentioned in the DIY Landscaper blog series, and how our landscape designers would recommend laying out perennials and shrubs.

Would you like someone to do the designing and heavy lifting for you? No problem! Give us a call to schedule a free estimate with one of our talented landscape designers! Our maintenance landscape crew specializes in fall cleanup. One call, and we can do it all!