If you find yourself with a garden which looks empty, here are some shrubs which will fill it up with colour and scent quickly and easily.
Leycestria formosa – Himalayan honeysuckle doing its thing
Leycesteria formosa, also known as Himalayan honeysuckle, can be planted anywhere sunny and it will put on several feet of new growth in Spring. It’s fun to look at and good for wildlife. If it gets too big or looks a bit scruffy in Winter, just chop if down to knee height and new growth will get going in the early Spring.
Clematis Montana can become a monster, but if you need space filled it will scramble up and away over anything it can find. It flowers in Spring with hundreds of scented clematis flowers from white to pink depending on variety. You can cut it down/chop it back anytime – it will grow again.
Clematis montana, a climber, covering a fence and into a neighbour’s tree
Sarcococca is a must for a front garden. It is called sweet box and is an evergreen shrub that produces tiny white scented flowers through the Winter. You can keep it small or let it get as big as it wants to. The scent is fabulous on a cold day when nothing much is flowering. People coming to your front door will wonder where the lovely smell is coming from.
My sarcococca gives scent for anyone walking down the path
Pyracantha, called Firethorn, is an evergreen climbing shrub which will also get huge if you let it. It produces white flowers in Spring which turn into red, yellow or orange berries from autumn onwards, depending on the variety. Birds need the berries for moisture. Weirdly this one and also mine is producing berries now. They would usually arrive in November here in London.
Some people prune it into a hedge
My pyracantha is left to climb and is pruned by shortening branches in winter
Kerria isn’t evergreen but is totally worth having in the garden. It has yellow flowers in Spring, single or double. Let it get big and sprawling or keep it to the size you want.
Kerria getting big and strangely flowering now in August as well as in April/May
Mahonia aquifolium is a lovely shrub – spreading around and giving you yellow highly scented flowers through the Winter. It is evergreen and the leaves although mainly green, can turn red or orange. The scent fills a front garden for weeks which is such a treat.
Mahonia, seen with glossy leaves in the middle of this confusion.
The point I am making is that if you have a lot of space to fill, buying lots of little ditsy plants and dotting them about is not the best way to create a garden and can be very expensive.
These shrubs will take up a lot of space and provide beauty, greenery, colour and scent. They are a good start for a sparse garden and can be the backbone of an established one like mine. If you get fed up with them as your garden matures you can always dig them up and give them to someone else. In a garden you’re never stuck with anything for ever.
I am taking part in the Six on a Saturday theme kindly hosted by The Propagator who you can find here
Absolutely agree. I think sometimes people get spooked by how big something can grow, instead of focussing on how big they’re going to let it grow. I have reservations about Leycesteria which seeds everywhere, including into the wild, down here at least.
Thanks. I like your point, that it is in our control as to how big a shrub grows.
Gosh I had no idea Leyceteria seeded itself about – it hasn’t done that here but then there isn’t much room for it to do that, what with everything else that self-seeds!
Some very good suggestions. The big benefit of Pyracantha for me is how well it thrives on a shady north facing wall, more so than most shrubs. Those north facing spaces are even harder to fill, but it can easily be trained to whatever shape you want, even around windows and doors.
Thanks for your comment Paul. Yes, I wonder why that white climbing hydrangea is always suggested for a north wall when you could have colourful berries instead, but then there are the thorns to think of I suppose.
I really like the way you choose your six every week to have a theme – self-seeders, shrubs and so on. And I’m jealous of your Pyracantha. Here it’s a race to see a berry in the morning before the birds get it. I’ve got mine partnered with a montana – they seem to grow happily through each other. I had hoped that the montana growth might keep the birds from the berries; that failed!
Thankyou so much John for your comments. The big round blob of pyracantha in the photo is a local garden where a maintenance company comes fortnightly and hacks everything to within an inch of its life. My sprawling pyracantha has taken 90 per cent of itself into my neighbour’s garden to face West and nearly all the berries are in their garden. Luckily they love the wild look at leave it alone and we get a lovely orange splash when we look out of a bedroom window.
the birds really do need the berries for the water don’t they.