If you are looking for a holiday gift for a gardener, now is the time to order online. You will, of course, have a delivery date of next spring when it is safe to plant, but a notification of the spring delivery will be sent to your lucky recipient before the holidays.
If your recipient has room for a large shrub, I would suggest Lespedeza thunbergii, which has delicate foliage and brilliant pink blooms in late summer when not too many other shrubs are blooming. It prefers full sun, low fertility, and well-drained soil and is hardy to Zone 5. Its common name is bush clover. The branches cascade gracefully from a mound that is 3-6 feet tall and as wide.
Another glorious ornamental shrub is fothergilla, which is one of our best natives. It has bottlebrush flowers in the spring and a sweet fragrance like honey. Fothergilla gardenii also has wonderful fall color. It loves moist well-drained soil and does well under large trees to provide shade in the heat of the day.
Another option is one of the newer Rose of Sharon plants that do not self-seed and bloom early in the fall. They are members of the Hibiscus family and grow 8-12 feet high and can get 6-10 feet wide. Two of the best are ‘Blue Bird’ and ‘Diana’, which is white and named for Princess Diana, and there is also a pretty pink. They prefer a bit of shade and can provide effective screens.
This is Moya Andrews and today we focused on gifts for gardeners.
