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# Friday, November 02, 2007
Shrub borders

Sara Begg, Executive Editor

MVineyard.jpg The perennial craze that has been ongoing in this country (world, probably) for the last 30 years has meant that shrubs have been given the short shrift. I overlook them myself. I bet out of each order that I place through mailorder or each purchase I make at a nursery, 75 percent are perennials, 20 percent are annuals or tender perennials, and 5 percent is made up of shrubs and trees. Well, no more. The extended fall that we are experiencing here in the Northeast means that a good garden can't rely only on perennials and annuals to pull it through. (Not that it should ever have, long autumn or not, but I've been lazy). After a trip to Martha's Vineyard last weekend visiting houses and gardens, I've been made to see the incredible beauty of the shrub border. The textures, colors, and shapes of the borders were remarkable and elegant. Their muted hues accented by the red and purple berries of deciduous hollies and beautyberries. None of the gardens I saw would be considered a "collector's garden" but were gardens of very good design. They allowed the natural beauty of landscape to speak for itself, accented by plants. Plants that were in most cases natives. While I don't think I'll be going down the path of full shrub borders anytime soon, I've already been trolling the catalogs for shrubs to help add heft, shape, and beauty to my (perennial) borders.

Read Meg Lynch's blog
Read Lisa Newman's guest blog

Friday, November 02, 2007 12:22:38 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #  Comments [0] 
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