Shrubs are great plants to use in your landscaping project. There are many varieties out there so you should easily find one that works well with your scheme.

Using Shrubs In Your Landscape Project
Shrubs are a pain-free, easy maintenance solution to creating a neat looking border. They are not only stunning and add interesting colors, but best of all they require very little work on your part once planted. There are many different species available so you should easily be able to select one that fits in with your scheme to perfection.

The Various Kinds Of Shrubs
Whether flowering like lilac and roses or adding winter interest like dogwood, shrubs come in all shapes and sizes, giving you a lot of colors and textures to choose from. They are a great way to give some height to a low flower scheme, providing much necessary balance to the overall visual effect. A vibrant specimen will also add a strong accent to nearby features.

Successful Borders
The secret to achieving the perfect border design is to use a balanced mix of heights, textures and colors that work well together. Shrubs can be very useful for this purpose as they can add interest, style and color to your borders and home throughout the year: a small amount of trimming will ensure they keep their good looks and do not grow too big.

Shrubs can also be used to line your plot, for instance as a hedge between your neighbors’ garden and your property. They are perfect for this as they will clearly delimit the area without closing the view like trees and fences do, so both you and your neighbors can enjoy them.

Planting And Basic Maintenance
Like most plants shrubs require a healthy soil with good drainage to thrive. This means that you may need to improve your soil by mixing in compost before you plant your new shrubs. Before you proceed you should always check if the roots look healthy. If needed you can use a knife to loosen them up before placing into the hole you dug. Good, regular watering is an absolute pre-requisite when establishing new shrubs.

The shrubs may look quite spread out at first but be patient as they will soon grow to fill in the gaps: you do not need to plant many shrubs to achieve a great effect. If the gaps do bother you, you could look into adding flowers in between the shrubs: perennials work wonders for this and will contribute to creating an even more interesting look for your landscaping scheme.

Mr.Andrew Caxton
http://www.articlesbase.com/gardening-articles/shrubs-used-in-landscaping-135288.html

The woody plants, smaller in size than trees, with low branches close to ground level, have traditionally been known as shrubs. They usually have more than one stem and these stems together are called canes, often touching the ground from all sides, forming a notable foliage. Shrubs are found in a variety of colors and with varied leaf designs. Bush, an often used word, is a synonym of shrub.

Shrubs carry not only good leafage but some of them support the same amount of flowers as well. Such shrubs are called flowering shrubs. These shrubs are aromatic enough to attract butterflies and are considered apt for household gardening. Examples of flowering shrubs are: hydrangea, honeysuckle, heptacodium, hibiscus, forsythia, fothergilla, dogwood, crape myrtle, clethra, buddleia, barberry etc.

Shrubs generally, are found to be 6 meters tall but they could differ in size. 10 to 20 cm small shrubs are known as sub-shrubs. These miniature shrubs can sometimes have non-seasional growth and can manage to survive in winter too, something that normal shrubs usually cannot do. Lhyme, cranberries, ericaceae, lavender, lerivinkle etc. are grouped under sub-shrubs.

Shrubs grow by themselves on some types of land. These lands are dry barrens but not exactly deserts. They are not good enough for the growth of green plants and trees, but intermediate shrubs can easily flourish here. Such regions of shrub-friendly lands are called shrub-lands in the technical language of Botany.

Mostly found near deserts and grasslands, they get more rain than the absolute deserts but lesser than green forests. Development of shrub-lands, to some extent, is also dependent on outer forces applied to the lands. For example, productive lands could get destroyed by natural calamities, by floods, fires etc. and can turn into shrub-lands, fertile enough only to promote shrubs.

So shrub-lands are the habitats of shrubs. Even so, shrubs do not grown on their own all the time! Shrubs can be cultivated too for mainly for decorative gardening. Such shrubs that are artificially grown by humans rather than by natural means collectively form a shrub-berry. According to novelists, shrub-berries are among the most romantic places.

Rationales Behind Giving Shrubs Some Space In Your Garden

- Do you feel you are all occupied with your business or profession and are short of time? At the same time, are you too fond of gardening to give it up completely? Well, given such a situation, shrubs are your best bet, as they are quite hassle-free and do not need much nurturing. No excessive attention is required, yet you will own a garden that is as beautiful as a carefully nurtured one.

- Some shrubs are as fragrant as flowers and help attract birds and butterflies, converting your garden into a more cheerful and colorful place.

- Your garden may look populated with the planted shrubs. As shrubs are bigger than plants and have a good foliage, they act as good padding material for parks and gardens.

- Shrubs could be put to good use inside the house to conceal unsightly corners.

Peter Finch
http://www.articlesbase.com/gardening-articles/picking-and-maintaining-the-perfect-shrubs-for-your-garden-100587.html