Evergreen shrubs can be a great way to add natural beauty and privacy to your yard, and flowering shrubs can look even nicer! However, many of them don’t grow well in full sun. Fortunately, there are quite a few that do. Here are 12 great choices to consider for your home.
Boxwood
While the beautiful boxwood’s flowers are more subtle, they do produce small white blooms in February and March. These shrubs are both cold hearty and versatile, making them a popular choice for many yards. They are also easy to maintain, which is part of their appeal. Though they are a bit slow growing at 2-3 inches per year, so some patience in required for these plants.
The Boxwood grows best in zones 5-8, and can be used as a decorative hedge, grown in pots, or many other applications, making it a versatile pick for landscaping.
Firefly Heather
This gorgeous and easy to grow plant offers not only beautiful blooms, but a lovely festival of changing colors through the seasons. In late summer, you’ll experience deep mauve flowers, and then color foliage in the fall and spring ranging from yellow to orange to red.
It also grows rather modestly at 18 to 20 inches, allowing you to place it into garden beds or other places where larger evergreens would be too cramped. They are low maintenance and survive deer, salt, drought, and harsh winters where other plants do not. Grows best in zones 5 to 9.
Winterberry Holly
While the holly plant is best known for its bright red berries, the plant also has small flowers – though they are short lived. In early spring and summer, the Holly plant produces delicate white flowers with green, yellow, or pinkish hues.
These plants are cold hearty and make excellent privacy bushes as well at their maximum sizes of 6-8 feet. They grow best in zones 3-9 and are perfect shrubs for smaller yards thanks to their compact nature. Keep in mind though that if you’d like to have berries you’ll need both male and female plants, as Holly will not produce berries without pollination.
Bearberry Cotoneaster
Similar to the Holly plant, the Cotoneaster will also sprout both lovely blooms and bright red berries, adding an attractive pop of color to your yard that attracts local critters to feast. It’s a dense evergreen that turns a reddish or purple color in winter and goes back to green in sring.
In late spring to early summer, the plant will be peppered with lovely little white flowers and then the berries will follow. This plant is easy to grow and makes a good ground cover for flower beds at 9-12 inches tall. Grows best ins zones 5 to 8.
Bixby Rhododendron
This beautiful evergreen shrub has bright pink flowers and dark green foliage that turns a rich mahogany-red color in the fall and winter. Another ground cover plant, you can expect this one to reach between 18 and 24 inches and height.
These plants are dense and compact, they do very well in full sun, and are very cold hardy too. They add an excellent pop of color to your landscaping without being too demanding if you don’t enjoy yard work. Grows best in zones 5-9.
Nandina
The Nandina is a plant which is both loved and loathed. While it is beautiful, it is also aggressive and very invasive and can quickly take over – so purchase with caution. Originally from regions of China, Japan, and India, it now plagues the Southeastern United States. It is also poisonous to cats and dogs, so you may wish to reconsider if you have pets.
However, the Nandina does feature beautiful foliage and white flowers, whose rich nectar attracts bees and other pollinators. It also features bright red berries, similar to holly, and the leaves changes colors through the seasons running from soft green to reddish-purple.
This plant will reach a mature height of 4-8 feet and about 2-4 feet wide. It will also tolerate a variety of soil conditions, and full sun to full shade, which is part of what allows it to grow out of control. Best grown in zones 6-9.
Winter Creeper
The winter creeper is a fast-growing evergreen shrub which is often used as ground cover. It will produce small, light greenish-white, flowers in the summer and fruit in the fall. It’s very versatile and can be used as a ground cover or may grow up to 3 feet high as a shrub as well.
Winter Creepers thrive in zones 5 to 8 and can tolerate a wide range of growing conditions. It makes a great landscaping plant which grows quickly, though is considered invasive due to this in some areas. In short, be careful where you plant it as it can quickly take over.
Rosemary
Looking for an evergreen that is not only beautiful but also useful? If so, you might consider rosemary. Yes, the same delightful and fragrant herb you use in your cooking is also a lovely, flowering, evergreen.
Rosemary can get surprisingly tall at 4-5 feet and it grows well in full sun. The plant produces attractive blue flowers, which are also edible, useful for teas, can be used in potpourri or other uses too.
It’s easy to grow, low maintence, useful, and fairly hardy. Though it’s not a good pick for cold climates, and it will grow best in zones 8-10.
Japanese Pittosporum
This long-lived and nearly indestructible plant can be grown as a hedge and maintained, though this trimming may cost you the lovely, fragrant white flowers which bloom on the plant. Or, you can let it run wild, and watch as it shoots up 3-8 feet in height and bushes out up to 8 feet wide to cover unsightly areas of your yard.
This plant is drought tolerant and an excellent, low maintenance flowering privacy plant. They are easy to care for and a great choice for planting next to a patio so you can enjoy the “mock orange” scent of this charming plant. Grows best in zones 8 to 12.
Pyracantha
More commonly known as the ‘Firethorn’, this gorgeous plant bursts with clusters of white flowers and red or orange berries, offering splashes of color to your landscaping. However, it also has sharp thorns, which make it popular as a barrier plant but potentially irritating if you want to prune it.
You should also keep in mind that this plant can get quite large, with a mature width up to 18 feet! It can also reach anywhere from 3 to 20 feet high, so plan accordingly when you plant it. However, it is quite beautiful, deer resistant, low maintenance and the berries attract native birds to your yard. Grows best in zones 6 to 9.
Tanya, both a nurturing stay-at-home mom and a skilled crafter, is the creative force behind our blog. As the co-founder of Romney Ridge Farms & Crafts, she’s the editor and curator. She also runs the Romney Ridge Farms & Crafts social media accounts where we post new patterns for you to enjoy.
