Easy Flowering Shrubs

• Include easy-to-grow flowering shrubs in your garden. Design Pics/Valueline/Getty Images

  Flowering shrubs structure the landscape with blooms and attractive forms. Although many different types of evergreen and deciduous shrubs exist, some are more popular than others due to their ease of maintenance, hardiness, disease- and drought-tolerance. Along with flowers, they provide coverage, fragrance, privacy and noise control, and attract hummingbirds, butterflies and bees to the area.

Butterfly Bush

• Butterfly bushes attract butterflies. butterfly on butterfly bush image by Scott Slattery from Fotolia.com

  Butterfly bush is a popular, easy-to-grow deciduous shrub that produces blooms in spring. It grows 6 to 12 feet high and 4 to 15 feet wide, depending on the variety selected, and produces fragrant, conical blooms in shades of pink, white, purple and red. The large, rounded habit and arching branches of the shrub forms an attractive focal point in the garden. Thriving in USDA hardiness zones 5 through 9, the showy heat-tolerant bush tolerates a variety of soils, provided it receives full sunlight. Trim the bush by 6 to 8 inches every spring to encourage healthy growth.

Mock Orange

• Blooming between late spring and early summer, the easy-to-grow mock orange shrub produces white blooms that emit an orange-like fragrance, hence the name. Like the butterfly bush, the mock orange tolerates a variety of soils and moisture conditions, and performs well in full to moderate sunlight or shade. The fast-growing shrub grows up to 10 feet high within two to three years. Prune the shrub after the second year to remove old growth.

Hydrangea

• Hydrangeas are popular shrubs. hydrangeas image by Ruslana Stovner from Fotolia.com

  Hydrangea is a popular summer flowering perennial that blooms into several colors depending on the soil's pH level. For example, acidic condition will grow blue blooms while alkaline condition will grow pink flowers. White flowers are not affected by the soil's pH level. Growing conditions include rich soil, partial sun exposure and moderate watering in dry seasons. Hydrangeas grow between 6 to 15 feet tall, depending on the variety selected, with masses of flowers that measure 10 to 12 inches across. The evergreen shrub forms an attractive focal point planted in a garden bed, border or container.

Lilac

• Fragrant lilacs are easy-to-grow. lilac image by Henryk Olszewski from Fotolia.com

  Lilac shrubs produce fragrant blooms in a variety of colors including purple, pink, blue, white, red and yellow. Most varieties grow from 8 to 10 feet tall and 10 to 12 feet wide. However, a few exceptions grow between 4 to 5 feet. The early-spring blooming shrubs prefer full sun to partial shade and well-draining, fertile soil. The butterfly and bird attractants form attractive shrub borders, and tolerate cold.