How to Choose the Right Shrubs for Your Yard

Choosing the right shrubs for your yard is based largely upon what to hope to achieve in your landscape design. Shrubs can play any number of different landscaping rolls from structural to purely decorative, and anything in between. Finding the right shrub for the right purpose is an art as well as a science, so you are going to want to spend a lot of time at your local nursery or garden center talking to the experts and finding out everything you can about different shrubs that you're considering.

Prior to your research it is important to have a good idea in mind of what you're hoping to accomplish with your shrubbery design. Are you looking to build a living privacy wall? Are you looking to add interest to the outside of your home? Do you want evergreen shrubs or deciduous shrubs? Do you want your shrubs to bear flowers or berries? What sort of space do you have for the continual growth of your shrub? Will you be able to handle aggressive burning?

These are just a few of the questions you should be asking yourself before you even start researching shrubs. Like all plants shrubs, in many different varieties that can suit any number of different needs. If you are looking to add wildlife to your yard you'll probably want a shrub that produces berries, if you are looking for butterflies you should look toward the shrub that produces a lot of flowers. If you want privacy you should look for a shrub that grows very dense. Having the answers to these questions in mind will allow you to go forward with your research in a much more specific and organized way and thus hopefully leading you towards the right shrubs that will meet your needs.

Before going to the greenhouse or nursery however you should probably spend some time researching on the Internet to get an idea of what sort of shrubs you are looking for. The Internet is a great way to start your research because of the wide variety of opinions available. This unfortunately is also the Internet's downfall, with all of this opinion becomes a lot of misinformation so choosing your sources carefully is the first step towards researching a successful shrubbery design for your landscaping needs.

A good place to start for your Internet research is to look at gardening forums where you can read many users opinions on various topics. Some of these forums require you to go through a trivial registration process before you can search through all of the messages, and this is well worth it. The vast majorities are free, and offer a wealth of user experience and opinions on a variety of topics including a shrubbery. Keep in mind however that this is all user opinion, however, because there are so many users posting their opinion it is easy to judge the overall opinion of the entire community towards certain subjects like shrubs and their care and maintenance; thus allowing you to glean some valuable insights from people struggling with the exact same decisions.

In addition to visiting Internet forums you will want to check out various horticultural web pages that offer lots of technical information about any species of shrub you may be interested in. These web pages will have information about zone requirements, as well as growth patterns; all of which is necessary information for you to successfully plant your shrubs. After all picking a pretty shrub is only half of the battle, making sure that it will flourish in the space provided is what will separate a successful attempt from a failure.

Armed with all of your new research you should then head to the garden center and evaluate what is available in your area. Just because you found it on the Internet and researched that it would grow well in your zone does not mean that your local nurseries and garden centers will have it available to you. Should this be the case with a shrub that you absolutely have to have you may want to ask if they can be special ordered or even check out online nurseries that may be able to ship it. A word of caution here; and shipping charges for a large shrub can be enormous and in fact end up equaling or exceeding the cost of the original shrub. Therefore if you are on a budget is better to be flexible in your design, and work with what is locally available. Remember, you can always call around to different nurseries and garden centers to see if they have something that their competitors do not carry.

At the end of the day realize that planting a shrub should be fun. It can be a great family activity, and working in the yard is always a good time especially if you are an avid gardener. So long as you keep your research in mind you should have no trouble selecting a great shrub that will thrive in your yard.

Craig Elliott is a freelance writer frequently writing about lawn care | lawn service