Lovely Shrubbery

Everyone has blind spots. We often focus on what most bothers us or takes the most work and miss some of the rest. In life, this can lead to us missing those who have helped and leave them feeling unappreciated.

The same can be said of landscaping.

We mow our lawns religiously because they’ll look bad without them. We tend to our flowerbeds. But there’s one unsung, underappreciated landscape hero that most miss: shrubs! This humble plant brings much to our property while barely adding work to our property management schedules.

So today, let’s remedy this lack of appreciation and spend some time on the domesticated bush, the tamed brush, the topiary, the shrubbery, the hedge, and their kin. Let’s answer your questions and celebrate how they improve your Anna landscaping.

What Makes a Shrub a Shrub?

While you may know one when you say one could define what a shrub is? They’re not just little trees (even if they look like them). The thing that makes them different from a tree is their trunks.

Trees have one single trunk from which all branches emanate. On the other hand, their shorter cousins are multi-stemmed, but that doesn’t mean you’ll never find one with a single trunk. Sometimes people intentionally groom them that way.

Ok, But, How Is That Not a Bush?

You may be asking, how is that now a bush or brush? That’s an excellent question!
Bushes are not necessarily a different species. Instead, they are just a name for the same plant when it has not been intentionally cultivated. In other words, bushes aren’t on purpose.
Meanwhile, brush is made up of multiple plants, including bushes, and is a much border term.

Why Do We Love Shrubs?

Now that you know what it is, what makes shrubbery so great? Like most things in landscaping, it’s a matter of opinion, but here are some reasons we’re singing its praises.

Make Everything Else Look Better

Everyone loves a well-maintained lawn. Green-trimmed grass is a status symbol and demonstration of the American Dream. But while a thick, vast green carpet with no dead spots may cause envy with your neighbors, let’s face it, by itself, it is boring.

Captivating landscapes work because of contrast, and landscape design endeavors to create a landscape that harmonizes while providing the right amount of that contrast. That means different colors and different heights. A well-trimmed hedge or round bush can give just the right amount of difference for your yard.

Easy to Care for

We mentioned the multi-stemmed aspect of our subject plants above. That’s one of the main reasons that they are so hardy. With multiple stems, a plant is less vulnerable to disease and has more surface area devoted to photosynthesis.
When a plant has one trunk destroyed, that’s the end of that plant. But, multi-stemmed plants have an opportunity to recover.

Varied!

Even before factoring in the many ways to trim and groom your shrubbery, they can provide variety to your landscape through multiple species. So whether you want something evergreen, flowering, or treelike, shrubs have you covered.

Privacy

Homeowners frequently like to use bushes to create privacy in their homes. When planted at the property line, they can reduce the ability to see onto your property and block out unwanted noise, such as traffic.

Grooming

There are certain things that every plant in your yard needs – water, soil, sunlight, and mulch, for example. Bushes are no different, whether wild or in your yard. But they also need trimming and pruning.

So what’s the difference between trimming and pruning? Both involve cutting and shaping your plants, and it’s not as if you have to schedule each separately, but there subtle differences between the two.

Trimming is a primarily aesthetic exercise. It’s the clipping of the ends of your branches to shape them and promote growth. Trimming can also create topiaries and hedges or clip your bushes down so they have one central trunk like a tree.

You may trim your plants with a more natural look or shape them into something round or square. A hedge, for example, is the intentional shaping of shrubbery into a rectangular fencelike border.

Pruning, on the other hand, is primarily for health. It removes branches (or other parts) to keep the rest of a tree or other plant healthy. Of course, we use it on flowers as well.

Full Shrub Ahead

We hope today’s blog made you want to go outside and appreciate your shrubs! It’s not just trees that need hugs, after all. So if you want to add some of these valuable plants to your property or want hand care for what you have, call Mowring’ R Us!