Shrubs in nursery containers are cute, and people plant a lot of them. Eventually everything gets claustrophobic. Nothing can compete. It’s dismal.
You want to hack them down to size or overhaul the whole place and start fresh. But consider retaining some of the shrubs and limbing them up, creating a grove of little trees. Light is admitted and an understory of shade plants can carpet the ground below. In a confined area a miniature forest is not ridiculous. It gives a settled look. It couldn’t be nicer.
Shrubs that form nice trunks lend themselves to this treatment. Pieris is excellent because of its distinctive undulating habit. Rhododendrons, hollies, euonymus, yews, rose of sharon, mountain laurel and aucuba are all suitable. Suckering shrubs that throw up new shoots from the base – like roses, spirea, and hydrangea – are usually not.
You want to hack them down to size or overhaul the whole place and start fresh. But consider retaining some of the shrubs and limbing them up, creating a grove of little trees. Light is admitted and an understory of shade plants can carpet the ground below. In a confined area a miniature forest is not ridiculous. It gives a settled look. It couldn’t be nicer.
Shrubs that form nice trunks lend themselves to this treatment. Pieris is excellent because of its distinctive undulating habit. Rhododendrons, hollies, euonymus, yews, rose of sharon, mountain laurel and aucuba are all suitable. Suckering shrubs that throw up new shoots from the base – like roses, spirea, and hydrangea – are usually not.
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