A large, rambunctious bush found along trails and old railroad beds, the common elderberry is a thicket-forming mass that may seem overgrown in home landscapes.
This old-time favorite was a staple in great-grandma’s garden and deserves a place even today. The white flowers, usually highly fragrant, appear for several weeks in late spring/early summer when many other shrubs are done blooming.
With a mature height of 20 to 25 feet, ‘Canada Red’ is sometimes grown as a tree. However, it freely suckers from the roots because it naturally wants to be a large multi-stem shrub. Grow it either way and still enjoy its attributes
This adaptable shrub gets its name from the airy flower structures that appear in summer and look like plumes of smoke, ranging in color from creamy gray to pinkish purple, depending on the cultivar.
While Burkwood viburnum matures at a more modest pace than other shrubs in this story, that can be good for those concerned about a shrub outgrowing its space.
Also known as southern bayberry because of its glossy olive-green leaves, wax myrtle is a multi-trunk evergreen with whitish-gray bark and leaves that are fragrant when crushed. Although this heat-loving shrub can reach an imposing size, wax myrtle can easily be sheared into a hedge.
Also known as bush honeysuckle, don’t confuse this with the similar-looking honeysuckle (Lonicera spp.), which is non-native and invasive. Adaptable Diervilla can be grown in full sun or full shade.
Although it features airy-looking yellowish-white blooms in spring and small, dark-blue fruits in late summer, red-twig dogwood really earns its stripes with its bark.