Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Spectacular Late Summer Shrubs

What’s Fabulous at Victoria’s?

Clethra ‘Pink Spire’ blooms July through August, soft pink, fragrant cone-shaped flowers. Oh, and what a fragrance! As sweet as roses, but more potent, and certainly less trouble. You will love this plant. Very low maintenance, deciduous shrub can take full sun to part shade, and can tolerate moist soils, even wetlands or pond side. Grows 6’ by 6’ in maturity. Attracts bees and butterflies.

Vaccinium spp. Everyone loves blueberries! And you can grow your own. Victoria Gardens has healthy and well-grown blueberry shrubs in stock. Blueberries are great because they have fewer pests than most of the other fruit trees and shrubs. The key to their success is making sure they are grown in acidic soil. Blueberries also serve double duty in the garden because they offer spectacular fall color.

Vitex (Chaste Tree) Deer resistant and late blooming, Vitex is a shrub Victoria uses often. Vitex has proven to be cold hardy. It is very late to leaf out, but delivers a great late show. Flowers are similar to a butterfly bush, but the Vitex has better structure. Come in and see what Victoria has been raving about. Blooming now!

And that’s not all…

Viburnum ‘Summer Snowflake’ is a deer-resistant shrub that produces lacey white blooms all summer. We mean it - it will bloom until Septemper! Albizia julibrissin 'Rosea' (Silk Tree) is a zone 5 cold-hardy tree often confused with the Mimosa tree (zone 6). This small tree only grows 20’ tall and wide and is covered in July through August with pink, feathery flowers. Very showy- th small green leaflets form a long compound leaf that has a tropical feel to it. Physocarpus opulifolius 'Diabolo' (Ninebark Treeform) The perfect small tree with dark purple leaves and striking white flowers mid-July through August. Grows 10' to 12' high and 6' to 8' wide in full sun to part shade. Styrax japonicus fargesii (Japanese Snowbell) This is a tree more people should know, deer-resistant, full sun to part shade, and grows 20' to 30' tall and 20' to 30' wide. "A delicate beauty...dark leaves perched like butterflies above the white, bell-shaped flowers." - Dirr's Hardy Trees and Shrubs