Experts dish on best shrubs, trees to consider for your landscape

It's easy to rack up the bills when buying perennials or annuals at your favorite garden center, but shrubs and especially trees can cost much more.

The price of even a small tree can be more than $100.

That's why we gathered suggestions to help you in your hunt for shrubs and trees at the recent Mid-Am Horticultural Trade Show for people in the industry.

The shrub information came from two nurseries that develop plants and sell them to retailers, while the wisdom about trees that should get more use in our area is the consensus of a panel from three wholesale nurseries.

Shrubs

Women notice the stunning beauty of Pink Chiffon, said Roderick Woods, the breeder of the Chiffon series of hibiscus or rose of Sharon. These are products of Spring Meadow Nursery in Michigan, developer of shrubs sold under the name Proven Winners.

“I don't know why these male chauvinist pigs can't appreciate it,” Woods said.

It was a glowing pink bloom on a roadside hedge in France that brought a passion for hibiscus to Woods, an English scientist who at the time was renowned in a field very different from horticulture (physiology).

He learned that the plant was not for sale anywhere in the world. Then when he searched again in the south of France he could not even find the original flower that had inspired him.

So he collected plants and crossed and recrossed.

The five Chiffons — pink, two whites, lavender and blue — are less rigid and uptight than other rose of Sharon, says Tim Wood of Spring Meadow, product developer and marketing manager. He recommends cutting them back about half way in the fall, saying that will reduce the number of seedlings.

Woods is very fussy with his breeding, insisting on perfection in color, size, flatness of bloom, streaks of red, shape and size of centers, vigor and the way the petals meet.

“I didn't want to cross the Pink Chiffon with anything,” he said. “I liked it. Light from the side or back switches it on. Most of the others go muddy (color). This is lingerie pink.”

The color pink is recessive in these flowers, which is why most pink hibiscus have a lavender tinge, said Tim Wood.

Woods has crossed 670 varieties from 1982 to 2011, with 30 attempts for each cross, and he got more than 15,000 flowering plants.

Believe it or not, the crosses only work between July 14 and Aug. 15.

Bailey Nurseries in Minnesota, a competitor of Spring Meadow, touts its Sapphire Surf Bluebeard, a compact plant that grows 2 feet tall and 3 feet wide. It's a caryopteris crossed with a clandonensis and needs full sun. These are marketed under the brand First Editions.

Bluebeard blooms blue from late summer through early fall and is deer-resistant and drought-tolerant while attracting butterflies.

Vanilla Strawberry paniculata hydrangea gets its name from its large multi-colored blooms. But watch out, paniculata needs sun, unlike many hydrangeas.

Although this shrub grows 6 or 7 feet tall it has been very popular the few years it's been available. This year it should be easier to find at garden centers, said Marc McCormack, Bailey sales manager.

Trees

It's important to plant trees in the right spot, said Kevin Finley of Mariani Nurseries in Kenosha, Wis., and Garden Prairie. Some trees can take the salt they will receive on the parkway or western sun or northerly winds and others just can't.

We picked these trees from the long list that Finley, Laurie Damgaard of Kaneville Tree Farm, and Greg Oltman of GRO Horticultural Enterprises in Union said should be planted more frequently.

ŸIf State Street maple turned red in the fall instead of a beautiful yellow, there would be no stopping its popularity, Finley said.

If you're an optimist or just like to plan ahead, go see the 60-foot tall original tree at Morton Arboretum in Lisle.

State Street could help replace green ash trees that are falling to the emerald ash borer, said Damgaard, as it does not seem to have disease issues, and Finley said the trees have held up in ice storms.

“It's starting to get exposure,” Finley said. “It's taken a longer time than we thought.”

ŸSwamp white oak or quercus bicolor transplants well and could be the most popular oak, said Oltman, who also likes chinquapin and bur.

Damgaard is excited about Regal Prince, a cross of swamp white and an English oak, which grows tall but more narrowly than most oaks.

ŸHackberry celtis occidentalis is a tree that needs the right location. It likes water and in nature grows in river beds, said Finley, so clay hills are not its favorite location. It loves heat.

ŸShawnee Brave, which is a bald cypress or taxodium distichum, withstands both drought and wet areas, but here at the northern edge of its range does not take as much water as the cypress in the swamps of southern Illinois.

Oltman has seen the tree doing well in the harsh climate of a parking lot island. One thing to consider when planting bald cypress is that the knees or roots that push up could be a problem in some places, he said.

Examples grow at the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe and the campus of Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge.

ŸTwo of the best elms bred to replace the American elm devastated by Dutch elm disease decades ago are Accolade and Triumph, both from the Morton Arboretum, Finley said.

Damgaard said the Accolade is wider, the Triumph more narrow, and Oltman said the Accolade can be ugly if it is not pruned.