The first element of your garden plan should be trees. After that come bushes and shrubs, which provide focus as well as colour, style and depth. Lathika George tells you how to make the most of shrubbery
Shrubs, like trees, are a significant feature in the design of a garden. They provide year-round interest with their blooms, leaves and, sometimes, fragrance.
Shrubs range from neat, ground-hugging plants like boxwood and cascading shrub geraniums to bush-like trees, like the hibiscus. Trees have a single woody stem, while shrubs have shorter multiple stems that spread and branch out.
In formal English and Mughal gardens, shrubs were once used in shrubberies (in the former) or as topiary and for geometric or floral designs (in the latter). In the modern garden, however, shrubs are often used as a backdrop for mixed perennial beds. They can be left in their natural form or shaped into topiary or pruned to make hedges. They help fill gaps between trees, and offer colour contrasts in groups.
CHOOSING AND ARRANGING
Visit local nurseries to see your options. Identify flowering shrubs and foliage shrubs, and get a rough idea of their growth patterns. Then take out your sketch pad and plan.
For mixed borders, plan your shrubs by shape, size and colour. Next to a tall tree, plan a large shrub, and add medium-sized bushes, fronted by the shortest. Start with the trees and use shrubs to flesh out your garden plan.
More From This Section
Large flowering shrubs like bougainvillea, hibiscus or oleander can also be used as individual or group specimens in focus areas like a central bed, or in a courtyard. Try different arrangements using forms and colours as you would in a painting: tall, conical trees complemented by a cluster of round shrubs; a leafy green tree surrounded by clusters of red-bloomed shrubs, and next to them shrubs with yellow blooms; a group of pink-bloomed lagerstroemias next to evergreen shrubs; shrubs like azalea and hydrangea grown en masse on a gentle slope. Colour in once you finish to get an idea of what you will end up with.
URBAN GARDENS AND TERRACES
Groups of small and large bushes can be planted around trees in a mixed border or as stand-alone plants. Try ornamental grasses and bamboos for shaded areas or by water features. Bougainvillea, azaleas, thujas and frangipani do well in large containers and are ideal for urban gardens where they can be shifted around or used for focal points or to camouflage utility areas.
Bushes and shrubs thrive in large, roomy containers where they can spread, spill over the edges or be trimmed into shape. Groupings of potted camellias, hydrangeas, miniature bamboos, grasses and rose bushes can fill up a terrace garden, creating the effect of a mixed border. For a minimalist terrace garden, plant golden cypresses in a long rectangular planter (or two) against a stark wall — trimmed to form a hedge or as topiary.
HEDGES
Used as a hedge in larger gardens, shrubs provide a green barrier between areas and if planned well ahead, as a compound wall. Shrubs like privet, shefflera, kamini or orange jessamine make good space dividers, and are practical for hedges within the garden. Rambler roses make an impenetrable barrier and can be an attractive feature when in bloom.
ACCOMPANIMENTS
Rosebushes are most favoured shrubs which can be tucked into mixed beds in smaller gardens, grown in pots or trained up walls and pergolas.
Bamboos and grasses can be grown separately in a minimalist or Oriental garden plan, or mixed with flowering and leafy bushes to create textures and forms.
PLANTING
Plant shrubs when it is not too hot, at the tail end of the monsoon or before high summer. If a shrub is to be planted in a mixed bed, make sure there is enough space for it to spread.
Loosen the soil before digging the pits. Each pit should accommodate a root-ball and also leave space for the shrub’s roots to spread a little. A mix of manure, neem, forest soil and crushed dried leaves should be left in the pit for a few days before planting.
LANDSCAPING
On one assignment, faced with a steep, stony slope, I decided to plant groups of low, hardy shrubs. I chose low (2-4 ft high) flowering and evergreen shrubs in groups of three or five, and a variety of grasses, to provide year-round colour and interest.
Three years later, the grasses had grown tall, the red-bloomed geraniums and white bush daisies were ablaze with blooms, the kurunji bushes which flower just once in 12 years had filled out into leafy domes and the rosemary shrubs were dotted with tiny white flowers — success!
You can create a similar bed with different planting arrangements: a mix of two or three grasses with clusters of evergreen and flowering shrubs. If done in a central bed, raise the area with soil, creating contours and dips for a multi-dimensional effect.
Shrubs and bushes, like trees, need time to take root and make themselves at home, but they are worth waiting for.
Lathika George is a writer and landscape designer based in Kodaikanal
| What to pick In the plains In the hills |
