With the trend toward minimal fall cleanup of flowerbeds, ensuring at the very least that weeds or any diseased plant material or debris have been removed, landscapes can look a little messy at this time of year.
Rather than lament the ragged condition of herbaceous perennials that you plan to leave standing for the winter, look beyond their dried stalks and revel instead in the richly colourful fall display provided by shrubs.
Today's smaller urban garden likely has more space for a diverse selection of shrubs than towering trees with vast canopies. Available in a vast range of shapes and sizes, homeowners can choose from a greater variety of shrubs than never before. The shrubs that are winning the day, though, are hardy and compact.
Most owners of wholesale nurseries and garden centres in southern Manitoba will agree the top categories of popular shrub varieties today are barberry, hydrangea and ninebark.
What does each have in common? Glorious colour variations from season to season within a single plant.
Barberries, virtually unseen in Manitoba gardens only 15 to 20 years ago, provide some of autumn's most exquisite contrasts. Small rounded leaves come in shades of vivid yellow with an orange cast, crimson, rich burgundy or deep purple.
While all barberry cultivars have dainty yellow flowers in springtime, some cultivars also produce brilliant red berries. Concorde barberry, a dwarf, rounded version with deep purple foliage and a mature height of 60 centimetres, is a favourite of Gerry Aubin.
Owner of Aubin Nurseries, a third-generation, family-owned wholesale nursery in Carman, Aubin says there are so many exciting barberry varieties being used quite readily now in the landscape.
Emerald Carousel is one of the hardiest barberries but is sometimes overlooked, says Aubin, because the foliage is green in the spring and summer. Its arching form and outstanding reddish-purple colour in the fall makes it truly unique.
My favourites include Rose Glow with its rose-pink colour that has mottled splotches of reddish-purple maturing to a deep maroon and Cherry Bomb with crimson red foliage that is positively riveting in late fall when other shrubs in the garden may have lost their leaves or begun to fade. Barberries are excellent choices for hedges, too.
Less than a decade ago, most gardeners were only familiar with two varieties of hydrangea, Annabelle and peegee. Today, there isn't room enough in anyone's garden for the multitude of new hydrangea varieties that come onto the market each spring.
Quick Fire hydrangea which blooms a full month before any other hydrangea starts out in July with lacy white panicle-shaped blooms and by late August, provides a profusion of deep rosy pink blooms.
Pair this with Limelight hydrangea with blooms that progress from lime green in mid-August to pure white, then dusty pink by late fall, and the garden takes on a range of hues previously unimaginable.
The easiest choice for any gardener is the paniculata type of hydrangea, requiring only adequate moisture, a sunny or part-sun exposure, and the occasional light pruning.
Similar to hydrangeas when it comes to a dizzying number of varieties to choose from in a range of sizes and tempting colours, ninebarks should command a presence in every landscape.
When Diabolo ninebark was introduced from Germany into Canadian gardens in the 1990s, interest was huge for this unique shrub with dark purple foliage. Today all three -- barberry, hydrangea and ninebark -- are available in more varieties than any one garden has room for. That becomes a difficult quandary for gardeners when exciting new introductions debut each spring.
Amber Jubilee is a sensational ninebark with foliage that emerges in the springtime in autumn-like colours of orange, yellow and red. By late summer, the foliage takes a surprising turn toward dark green with tones of red and purple. By late October, the leaves are a brilliant rusty-red.
Named in honour of Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee in 2012, Amber Jubilee is a medium-sized shrub with a mature height and size of 1.75 m.
I have only one specimen but next spring, Jeffries Nursery, a wholesale nursery in Portage, will offer Amber Jubilee in tree form. Tree forms are outstanding additions to perennial and shrub beds. Visualize a lollypop: a slender stem with a round ball of foliage on top, for a mature height not exceeding 2.4 metres. Tree forms provide so many possibilities in the landscape, rising up as they do with space beneath their foliage for an array of compact shrubs.
Reliable dogwoods, long a stalwart and colourful presence in Manitoba gardens, are reclaiming centre stage with their variegated foliage, crimson red or golden apple-cider coloured stems and more compact size.
Bylands Nurseries, a wholesale producer of plants, will introduce Neon Burst dogwood in spring 2015. What makes it special? Jan Pedersen, sales representative for Bylands, shares that Neon Burst is a new plant developed by Ron Boughen at Boughen Nursery, Valley River, Manitoba (near Dauphin).
Coming off a trial period at Bylands, Pedersen says that Neon Burst is nothing less than beautiful. With big leaves that are both green and yellow at the same time, red stems and a compact habit, Neon Burst is expected to be a popular addition to other dogwoods with four season value such as Red Gnome and Bud's Yellow.
Boughen Nurseries, celebrating 102 years in Manitoba, is known for developing exceptional plants. These include Skybound cedar, Charisma lilac, and Silver Charm dogwood, another compact dogwood with excellent white variegation that Gerry Aubin says is a superior plant in every way to many other shrub varieties.
What other shrub varieties should homeowners consider?
Aubin recommends Canyon Blue Arctic willow, a new compact willow with simply amazing steel blue foliage. Super hardy, this unique shrub also features deep purple branches and is a long-lived, fast grower. Before seeing it earlier this summer, I would not have believed such a fascinating colour in a shrub was possible in the landscape.
Other suggestions include Snowbelle mockorange, a compact shrub (1.25 m) completely massed with fragrant double white blooms. Aubin also praises Emerald Triumph viburnum. "Nothing goes wrong with this plant," says Aubin. With gorgeous clusters of white flat-topped flowers, whorls of glossy foliage and showy bright red fruit that turn to black in fall, plant this one in the middle of the shrub border as it will grow to 1.5 m.
Aubin is impressed, too, by Sem False spirea. "It's really a breakthrough in the Sorbaria family," says Aubin. Emerging in spring with rare pink-red fernlike foliage on pink stems that turn chartreuse to bronze as the season wears on, this compact shrub is certainly intriguing. It does produce vigorous suckers, though, that should be snipped off as they appear.
Expect delicious new introductions in 2015. Shauna Ronald, co-owner of Jeffries Nurseries, says not only will the trend continue toward a more compact size but also on hardiness and plants that deliver on colour and hold their form better.
Ronald and Pedersen both expect the love affair with chartreuse to continue. Lemon lace sambuca has deeply cut, lacy leaves of gold and green yet the mature size, says Pedersen, is two-thirds of what one would typically expect from a golden elder.
Ronald says Lemon Candy ninebark, a new gold-leafed cultivar that turns to chartreuse, diversifies the field of ninebarks even more with its mature size of only 61 to 91 cm. Sunny Outlook and Maroon Sunset, two new vibrantly hued ninebark introductions from HGTV together with Burgundy Candy, an almost-black-like purple-leafed ninebark from Ball Ornamentals with excellent mildew resistance, will provide vibrant contrast in the landscape.
Don't forget about spireas. Susan Jensen Stubbe, owner of Jensen's Nursery, considers Tor Birchleaf spirea an indispensable staple in the landscape. Emerging mint-green in early spring and becoming a blend of yellow, bronze and red in the fall, this hardy spirea exhibits no disease or pest problems.
A new spirea selection that should be interesting next spring, says Pedersen, is Sundrop. Shaped like a basketball and about the same size, Sundrop's colouring is a golden red-green. This self-maintaining sphere will be great in the border.
I'm waiting for Double Play Blue Kazoo, a blue-tinted spirea with hints of burgundy in the foliage that becomes a rich red in the fall.
Expect shrubs to feature a kaleidoscope of colour in garden centres next spring that will enrich your landscape with long-lasting colour throughout the seasons.
