• Blog
    • General Gardening
    • Vegetables & Fruits
    • Gardening for Children
    • Gardening Videos
    • Trees
    • Landscape Design
    • Insect Pests
    • Weeds
  • Events
  • Gardening Videos
  • Resources
    • Gardening Guide
    • Online Resources
    • Speakers Bureau
  • Garden Helpline
    • Collecting Samples of Plants and Insects
  • The Learning Garden
  • About Us
    • About Us
      • How to Become an Extension Master GardenerSM Volunteer
    • The Association
    • Contact Us
    • Speakers Bureau
    • Sponsors
      • Sponsors: 2019 Garden Tour
      • Sponsors: 2019 WNC Gardening Symposium
  • Donate
Extension Master GardenerSM Volunteers of Buncombe County

shrubs

Shrubs for Fall Planting: Choose Formal or Informal!

October 25, 2021

Fall is a great time to plant shrubs, and there are so many choices! One way to narrow your selection and save yourself some frustration in future years is to picture where you want to plant your new shrubs and how you want them to look.

Roles for shrubs
Shrubs can play many roles in your landscape. These include:

  • Foundation plantings
  • Screens for privacy—or to block a view
  • Hedges to define areas within your property or to define property boundaries
  • Serve as a woody groundcover
  • Source of fall color, flowers, and/or fruit
Formal foundation planting with conifers
Informal hydrangea hedge
Shrubs serving as a woody groundcover on a slope
Beautyberry with fall color and fruit
Formal planting of evergreens

Considerations
Once you’ve decided where you want to plant shrubs and for what purpose, consider how they’ll look before you choose. As you think about landscapes you admire, you’ll likely notice how formal or informal they look. Shrubs are often a good indicator of formality.

  • In formal landscapes symmetry and geometric shapes are the rule—shrubs are typically pruned to have clean lines, whether rounded or angular.
  • In informal landscapes, shrub forms are left to more natural shapes.
Improper pruning decreases the number of flower buds

This may seem an unusual first step in choosing a shrub, but the desired appearance of your shrub may affect several aspects of your choice:

  • If your shrub is evergreen or deciduous—most shrubs that take to shearing are evergreen rather than deciduous
  • If your shrub flowers or fruits you will typically want a less formal shape because shearing may remove flower buds—and prevent the flowers and/or fruit that follow—one exception is if you espalier fruit trees to shrub-size plantings (see “Specialty pruning” section in General Pruning link below)
  • The distance you plant your shrubs from structures or other plantings—shearing will limit height and perhaps width of your shrub, depending on if your shrub is planted as a specimen or in a hedge.
Many holly species can be pruned to formal shapes


Choices!
For formal shrubs, think typically evergreen and smaller-leaved. Many dwarf and smaller conifers will grow into pleasing shapes and stay small with little pruning. Although boxwoods are the classic selection for shearing, the devastating appearance of boxwood blight makes this a riskier choice. Some of the evergreen hollies (Ilex spp.) are suitable replacements:

  • Inkberry hollies (Ilex glabra) are native to NC, slow-growing, and tend to grow in a rounded shape that requires little pruning. There are dwarf varieties that grow only to 3 feet tall, and the species typically tops out at 5 to 8 feet.
  • Yaupon hollies ( I . vomitoria) are also NC natives, suitable for shearing, but faster growing, larger, and less hardy—only to USDA hardiness Zone 7a, so not suitable for colder parts of Buncombe County.

Note that Japanese hollies (I. crenata), which tolerate extensive pruning and are often used for topiaries, is an invasive plant and has been reported along the Blue Ridge Parkway in Buncombe County.

For informal landscapes, both evergreen and deciduous shrubs can provide a variety of sizes, shapes, colors, and seasons of interest. In addition to many varieties of hydrangeas and viburnums—some of which are evergreen—there are many lesser-known shrubs that are excellent choices for WNC landscapes. A few that are also native include:

  • American beautyberry (Callicarpa americana) has arching branches, is 3 to 8 feet tall and 3 to 6 feet wide. Small flowers attract pollinators in late spring/early summer and distinctive purple berries and yellow foliage make this shrub a stand-out in fall. Some varieties have white or pink berries; all beautyberries are attractive to birds.
  • Carolina allspice/Sweetshrub (Calycanthus floridus) forms rounded shrubs 6 to 12 feet tall and wide with fragrant, showy red flowers in spring are visited by pollinators. Unusual seedpods form in fall.
  • Red chokeberry (Aronia arbutifolia) is typically vase-shaped, 6 to 10 feet tall and 3 to 5 feet wide. It has four-season interest, with white flowers in spring that attract pollinators, shiny green leaves in summer, attractive red fall foliage and red berries that feed birds and mammals, and exfoliating bark during the winter.
    Sweetshrub flowers in early summer
    Red chokeberry has beautiful fall foliage and berries

Planting
Now is the time to plant! Autumn planting encourages strong root growth—cooler temperatures and fall rains make for lower maintenance, too. Give your shrubs a great start by digging a planting hole that is only as deep as the root ball, but 2 to 3 times as wide. Backfill with existing soil rather than other materials. Mulch lightly, keeping the mulch away from the stems, and keep well-watered throughout the winter months. Enjoy!

Article by Debbie Green, Buncombe County Extension Master GardenerSMVolunteer

 

For more information:

Planting and caring for shrubs: https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/extension-gardener-handbook/11-woody-ornamentals

Pruning trees and shrubs: https://chatham.ces.ncsu.edu/2015/02/pruning-trees-and-shrubs-2/

General pruning: https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/general-pruning-techniques

Landscape design: https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/extension-gardener-handbook/19-landscape-design

 

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)

Categories General Gardening, Shrubs Tags fall garden chores, garden planning, landscape planning, shrubs

Time to Maintain: Pruning Evergreen Shrubs

March 5, 2018

Do you have boxwoods, cherry laurels, or other shrubs with evergreen leaves in your yard or landscape? Late winter and early spring are the best times to prune these and many other leafy evergreens in your landscape.

Aucuba (Aucuba japonica), boxwood (Buxus sempervirens), cherry laurel (Prunus laurocerasus), and osmanthus (Osmanthus sp.) are a few of the many shrubs grown for their evergreen foliage rather than their blooms or fruit. Often serving as foundation plants and hedges, such shrubs have a variety of leaf shapes and leaf variegation (different colors in the same leaf) that make them welcome in the winter landscape.

Spotted Laurel, Aucuba japonica_J Maughn_CC BY-NC 2.0_Flickr
Aucuba (aucuba japonica) or spotted laurel
Boxwood hedge_spring garden_Ken Dodds_CC BY-NC-ND 2.0_Flickr
Boxwood (Buxus sempervirens) hedge
Osmanthus_leaves and budding flowers_Homer Edward Price_CC BY 2.0_Flickr
Osmanthus or tea olive, budding flowers

Do you need to prune?
Although the title of this blog post is “Pruning of Evergreen Shrubs,” of all the plants in your landscape, evergreen shrubs require very little annual pruning! They grow into desirable forms by themselves and only need an occasional helping hand from you. When you do prune, keep the following in mind:

  • Always carry a sharp pair of hand pruners in your hand or a leather scabbard on your belt when working with the evergreen shrubs in the yard.
  • Be on the lookout for dead or broken branches and remove them promptly.
  • Remove any branches that are crossing over each other as they can rub the bark and make the plants more susceptible to infection.
  • Prune back branches that are growing onto driveways, sidewalks, and patios. When pruning, be sure to cut back to a branch or node that is pointing in the direction that you want it to grow.
  • When you shear hedges, remember to leave the bottom of the plants a bit wider than the tops to get light to the lower limbs, keeping them lush and green.
  • Prolonged use of electric hedge shears will result in a very small veneer of leaves just on the outer surface of the plants. If part of a continually sheared plant dies, the inner leaf buds will not develop and you will be left with a “hole” in your hedge. Take a look inside your hedge, and if you do not see leaf growth along the inner branches, you need to seriously consider using hand pruners to thin out portions of the plant canopy so light gets into these inner areas and the secondary buds have a chance to develop.
Topiary at Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden, Bishopville, SC
Topiary at Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden, Bishopville, SC

Some of these plants (such as boxwood or Japanese holly) can be pruned into fantastical shapes in topiary form. Plants shaped this way bring to mind animals, ships, and buildings. Forming plants into topiaries requires a tremendous amount of time and pruning effort to maintain their shape—almost constantly pruning off the stray branch or leaf—but the reward is a uniquely personal landscape.

 Cultural considerations
Evergreen shrubs are relatively disease- and insect-free and can be remarkably winter hardy. The fact that these plants keep their broad leaves throughout the winter, however, makes them particularly susceptible to winter desiccation and damage. You can avoid this by choosing the correct varieties for our area—pay strict attention to the hardiness zone when purchasing shrubs. Western North Carolina is generally in the USDA Hardiness Zone 6 or 7. Keeping a layer of mulch around the base of these plants will help to conserve moisture and minimize winter damage.

Caution! Know your shrubs!
Now is NOT the time to prune evergreen shrubs that you grow for their flowers! If you are uncertain, the Extension Master Gardener volunteers of Buncombe County can help you identify the plants in your landscape.

  • In general, shrubs blooming before June bloom on old season’s growth and you should prune them directly after blooming. Examples of plants in this category include azaleas and rhododendrons (both are Rhododendron spp.), as well as Japanese camellias (Camellia japonica) and mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia). We will discuss their care in a future blog post.
  • Shrubs that bloom later in summer—such as hollies (Ilex spp.) and Pieris spp. (commonly known as andromedas or fetterbushes)—bloom on new growth so you can prune them before growth begins in the spring.

Article written by Bob Wardwell, Extension Master GardenerSM Volunteer.

Learn more
The Art and Science of Pruning
by N. Jordan Franklin, Consumer Horticulture Agent
Clemson Cooperative Extension

Pruning Trees & Shrubs: General Pruning Techniques
by Barbara Fair, Lucy Bradley, and Anthony LeBude
NC State Extension Publications

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)

Categories Seasonal Chores Tags evergreens, pruning, shrubs

Fall Arrived on September 21. Get Ready to Plant!

September 22, 2016

Regardless of the thermometer reading, fall is in our future! With fall comes the best time for planting many woody—as well as herbaceous—perennial plants. Plus, nurseries often have fall sales to move their existing stock.

Keys to successful fall planting
If you find plants you like, you might think: “Where can I put this particular plant?” A better question is: “What plant best fits my landscape scheme for this spot?”

  • Before you buy have a site in mind.
  • Be sure that spot meets the desired plant’s requirements for sun, moisture, and nutrients.
  • Know how much space the plant needs and how quickly that plant will spread. Don’t bring home an invasive “Backyard Bully”!
  • How about the soil pH? A soil test will tell you if you need to lime or add any nutrients.

The results of a soil test may change your mind. Consider choosing plants that will match the site characteristics. 

Woody plants have additional needs
Trees—and even large shrubs—need special attention to their future size. Pruning may not be a viable answer to a tree that is shading too much of your homestead or threatening a power line, or a shrub that’s blocking a view. Consider how the planting will work in all four seasons. And think about how your placement will affect your neighbors, too. You can’t call in a moving company to cure a poor decision if your planting outgrows its space.

Are you prepared to do your own planting?
When looking at a woody plant you intend to plant yourself, consider the size, shape, and weight of the root ball. How is the root ball contained or restrained? You’ll need to remove that container or restrainer during the planting process, so be sure you have the appropriate tools. It is best to discard burlap or wire that may restrict future growth. 

Roots
Before you plant, examine the root ball. Are there broken or circling roots? Many horticulturalists recommend carefully washing off the planting medium to correct any root problems before planting. At a minimum, remove circling or broken roots and then score or cut through the root ball to encourage root growth. For more information about root systems of woody plants see: http://gardenprofessors.com/little-ball-of-horrors/  

Planting and irrigating
Backfill with the soil you removed when you dug the planting hole, and water as you fill. Tamp the soil gently; you don’t want to compact the soil, just put it in contact with the roots. Roots will continue to grow all fall and winter as long as the soil is not frozen at their level, so keep the root ball moist.

Mulching
Finish by spreading mulch over the root ball. Not only will mulch retain moisture, but the mulch “blanket” helps maintain a stable temperature, so that a surge during a warm spell won’t cause the plant to prematurely break dormancy. But don’t mound mulch around tree trunks or shrub stems.

Pick a cool day and enjoy the exercise.

Article written Glenn Palmer, Extension Master Gardener Volunteer.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)

Categories Installation & Planting Tags fall planting, mulch, roots, shrubs, woody plants

  • 1
  • 2
  • Next Page »

NC Cooperative Extension; Empowering People, Providing Solutions

Blog posts written and published by Extension Master GardenerSM volunteers in Buncombe County.

Subscribe via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to our blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 3,553 other subscribers

Recent Posts

  • Introduction to Botanical Dyeing, June 23
  • Wednesdays in the Learning Garden, June 22
  • Online Seminar: Heavenly Hydrangeas June 16
  • Gardening Video: Turf – Truth and Transformation
  • Gardening Video: Building a Wattle Gardening Bed

Categories

  • Events
    • Extension in Buncombe County
    • Extension Master Gardener Info Table
    • Extension Master Gardener Plant Clinic
    • Garden Tours
    • Lectures & Seminars
    • NC Mountain State Fair
    • Plant Sales
    • School Garden Grants
  • Flowers
    • Bulbs
    • Perennials & Biennials
    • Roses
    • Wildflowers
  • Gardening for Children
  • Gardening Videos
  • General Gardening
    • Installation & Planting
    • Mulch
    • Native Plants
    • Propagation
    • Seasonal Chores
    • Soils & Fertilizers
  • Houseplants
  • Landscaping
    • Firewise Landscaping
    • Landscape Design
    • Site Conditions
    • Water Management
  • Lawns
  • Pest Management
    • Integrated Pest Management (IPM)
    • Invasive Plants
    • Pesticides
    • Weeds
  • Plant Diseases
  • Plant Insects
    • Beneficial Insects
    • Insect Pests
    • Invasive Insects
  • Shrubs
  • Special Gardens
    • Container Gardens
    • Herb Gardens
    • Pollinator Gardens
    • Rain Gardens
    • Shade Gardens
  • Trees
  • Vegetables & Fruits
  • Wildlife

Contact Us

Buncombe County Extension Office
49 Mount Carmel Road
Asheville, NC 28806
Helpline 828-255-5522

Events

Keep up with our events by subscribing to the blog or checking our Events Calendar.

Explore the Archives

Back to Top

Copyright © 2022 Extension Master Gardeners of Buncombe County. Privacy Policy.