Landscape Design Using Deciduous or Evergreen Shrubs and Vines

In a landscape design shrubs are among one of the garden's most versatile plants, they not only serve as a background for other displays but they provide their own variations of colors and textures. In our landscape design the most important decision we make is to purchase deciduous or evergreen or both types of shrubs and vines.

The difference between a tree and a shrub is not just the height. Both have woody branches that will stay alive all year, but the shrub grows its branches near, at, or even below the level of the ground, and a tree generally has a single trunk and its branches will start some distance up. Therefore the common lilac is classified a shrub even if it reaches twenty feet in the air, and a ten-foot-tall flowering dogwood is a tree. A large shrub can be pruned so it will look like a small tree and some trees can be trained to look like a shrub. Technically most vines are shrubs because they form their woody branches starting closer to the ground.

Because of the fact that shrubs are long-lived and substantial, they play a key role in turning an area of earth into a garden. They usually are the permanent garden features where we show off our annuals and perennials year after year. A garden without shrubs lacks prominence and variety, and during the winter months the garden becomes a lifeless, flat plain. Because of their flowers, leaves, and berries vines and shrubs provide us a visual interest all year long.

Which type of shrub should we choose, deciduous or evergreen? The deciduous plant will drop leaves in the fall, and sometimes in semi-desert and warm areas, at the start of the dry season; it spends the winter dormant and bare and will leaf out again in the spring. Compared with the evergreen shrubs, which will retain their foliage all year, many of the deciduous shrubs will make up for the drabness in the spring or summer with a showing of spectacular flowers, and sometimes in the fall with a display of beautiful colored leaves. Many gardeners appreciate deciduous shrubs because of the changes they go through with the seasons. Most of your deciduous shrubs are not as expensive as the evergreens and the will grow much faster.

Evergreen shrubs will provide winter color and offer us other advantages: many will thrive in shady areas of the garden; the texture and tone of the foliage make fascinating contrasts to the flamboyant deciduous shrubs and those flowering annuals; they give our landscape design stability all year long.

Some evergreens have broad leaves and then there are some that have needles. Generally, the farther south you go, there is a wider choice of the broad-leaved evergreens available. Most of the subtropical and tropical shrubs are evergreen, and in our country's Sun Belt, Pacific Coast, and Southwest, they make-up the majority of shrubbery found in home and garden centers. Some types such as the magnolias are found in the South as evergreens but also have deciduous species that grow quite well up North. Others, such as the California privet, will lose their foliage in regions that have biting winter storms that strip their branches. And there are others such as the Rhododendron and mountain laurel that will stay green just about anywhere they live.

Most of the needle evergreens have a tendency to flourish in the northerly climates, even though there are some exceptions to this fact. The creeping juniper is one such plant that is very common in the South. There are other variables that can affect your choice of shrubs: the soil composition such as loamy, sandy, or clay; the pH balance of the soil; the humidity and precipitation amount it will receive; the amount of sun; the elevation; and the amount of salt spray if you live by the ocean.

Evergreens will remain interesting year round, and in the spring and summer will form a background for the flowering deciduous shrubs. The strong upright forms will accent the low round ones. Wisteria, which is a hardy deciduous vine, can grow to be 100 feet and with fragrant flower clusters that bloom in late spring and early summer. These shrubs and vines will add more life to your landscape design.