Flower Garden Lovers

Planting Shrubs in Your Flower Garden

Part 1

Planting shrubs in your flower garden is not very different from planting trees. Most people consider early spring to be the most favorable time to plant since it gives the plant lots of good growing weather to get re-established. However in the warmer sections of the country, transplanting may be done from fall into the early winter months. This is to avoid the very hot and drying weather of the summer.

Shrubs usually come from the nursery, the local home improvement store, or even the other big box stores in one of three ways. There are bare root shrubs, usually for easily transplanted plants, balled and burlapped shrubs and shrubs in containers.

You may wish to, and it is suggested, that you take a trip to your local nursery to see what is available in your area. Do a scouting trip first to see the shrubs you want to plant - how the shrubs actually look and to find out any other useful information like how big it will grow in your area. We will assume (yes, dangerous ground here) that you already have some type of plan, preferably drawn out on paper, on how these shrubs will fit into your flower garden design whether it is to provide boundaries for garden rooms or as the back drop in a flower bed. Don't forget to take into account their full-grown dimensions.

Dry roots are the chief cause of planting failures. You should take steps to prevent this. It is best to have the hole for each shrub you plan to plant ready before you actually buy the plant. Just a note but when you buy balled and burlapped shrubs, or trees for that matter, make sure that the ball is solid. That is, make sure it hasn't dried out and that there are no loose chunks inside the burlap. This could very well mean the roots are exposed and have dried out. You want a good solid ball.

The best way to buy shrubs, in the opinion of many gardeners, is in containers. However, insure that some bare rootstock shrub wasn't just stuck in a pot with some dirt thrown around it. You will not have the extensive root structure of a true container grown shrub. Also, don't buy shrubs in containers where a mass of roots have escaped the bottom of the container or are trying to grow out the top. This poor plant is just too crowded and stressed and may never perform adequately for you.

Note: This article has been broken down into three parts for easier reading on line.

© 2005, Sandra Dinkins-Wilson

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