Flowering shrubs for your garden: 5 beauties for full sun

Choosing flowering shrubs for your garden can feel overwhelming, especially if you’re new to gardening. There are dozens upon dozens of choices at your local nursery, but not every shrub you come across is going to be a good fit. The key is to seek out low-maintenance flowering shrubs that bloom beautifully, without requiring a lot of upkeep. But, they also have to be gorgeous, too! Finding the right flowering shrubs for your landscape does take a bit of sleuthing, but the payoff is huge. When you take the time to carefully select the best shrubs for your growing conditions, the result is years and years of beautiful blooms. 

Today, we’ve teamed up with Bloomin’ Easy to introduce you to five amazing flowering shrubs for your garden that offer a long bloom-time filled with scores of colorful flowers. These shrubs are pest and disease resistant, fully winter hardy, and their naturally compact growth means they won’t get unruly in smaller garden beds or foundation plantings. All five of these flowering shrubs also offer interesting foliage colors and textures, and as an added bonus, they’re all pollinator- and wildlife-friendly while still being deer resistant (hooray!). In fact, they’re perfect choices for full-sun gardens from the east coast to the west, and nearly everywhere in between.

5 Flowering shrubs for your garden

1. Tuxedo™ Weigela is a stellar choice for gardeners who want both striking foliage and lovely blooms. And, like all weigelas, the fragrant bell-shaped blooms of this variety are adored by bees and butterflies. But unlike some other weigelas, this beauty is hardy down to -30° F (-34°C) and has no winter die-back. The dark burgundy foliage is really striking, and the more sun the plant receives, the darker the foliage becomes. More compact than some other weigelas, Tuxedo™ Weigela grows 4 to 5 feet tall and 3 to 4 feet wide.

Perfect plant partners: We think the deep burgundy foliage of Tuxedo™ Weigela would look especially gorgeous when combined with white-flowering perennials and ground covers, including white phlox, candy tuft, Campanula, gaura, and even white rock cress.

2. Rainbow Fizz™ Spirea is a snazzy little flowering shrub for your garden that grows to just 3 to 4 feet in height and spread. Its red-tipped chartreuse foliage is a serious stand-out in the garden. And then, when the red flower buds open into clusters of fuzzy pink blooms, the real show begins! The naturally tight, rounded form of Rainbow Fizz™ Spirea means you won’t be reaching for the pruning shears every spring, and with a winter hardiness down to -40°F (-40°C), there’s no stopping this flowering shrub. Plus, it’s said to be an excellent choice for container gardens.

Perfect plant partners: The bright, spirited foliage of Rainbow Fizz™ Spirea would be extra show-stopping when combined with blue- and purple-flowering annuals and perennials, such as salvia, veronica, columbine, lobelia, peroviskia, and blue hyssop.

3. Peach Lemonade™ Rose is a plant that seems almost too good to be true! But there’s no trickery here — Peach Lemonade™ Rose does exactly what’s promised. It produces multi-colored flowers that change from a lemony yellow when they’re young to a bright pink as they age. Often both colors are on the plant at the same time! All that’s required for non-stop blooms is an occasional deadheading. The dark green foliage is also disease resistant, making this hardy rose a truly low-maintenance choice.

Perfect plant partners: To really show off this gorgeous, multi-colored rose, we suggest surrounding it with a “skirt” of simple, ground-hugging annuals and perennials, including sweet alyssum, Veronica ‘Waterperry Blue’, ajuga, Dianthus, or even herbs like creeping thyme, lavender, and golden oregano.

4. Bella Sol™ Potentilla is a cultivar of a North American native species (Potentilla fruticosa), so it’s a great choice for gardeners keen on including native plants and their cultivars in the landscape. Like the other flowering shrubs we’re featuring in this post, Bella Sol™ Potentilla has done beautifully in my own garden. The beneficial insects and bees absolutely adore the long-lasting blooms, and new blooms are produced fairly consistently all summer long with only an occasional deadheading necessary. The brilliant orange flowers are so intense, and since this variety reaches just 3 feet in height, there’s absolutely no pruning required. It’s incredibly hardy (down to -50°F; -46°C), and the deer practically stick their noses up at it.

Perfect plant partners: The shocking orange blossoms of Bella Sol™ Potentilla will definitely pump up the garden. But, if you combine this plant with other brilliant, eye-popping colors, we’re sure it would really bring the house down. Try pairing it with the blazing-hot red and yellow flowers of sun-loving annuals, like Salvia ‘Lady in Red’, ‘Lemon Gem’ signet marigolds, zinnias, celosia, petunias, and yellow ‘Popstar’ bidens.

5. Admittedly, when it comes to flowering shrubs for your garden, I have a soft spot for those that attract hummingbirds and Nightglow™ Diervilla does just that. This is a northern bush honeysuckle with bright, sulfur-yellow, tubular flowers that really stand out against the dark, chocolatey-red foliage. The low, vase-shaped structure of this flowering shrub reaches just 2 to 3 feet in height, making it a great fit for foundation plantings and front yard shrub islands. Nightglow™ Diervilla is a cultivar of a hybrid created by crossing two species of Diervilla, one native to southeastern North America and the other native to the northeast (D. sessifolia and D. lonicera, respectively), making it a good choice for much of the continent.

Perfect plant partners: The glowing yellow blooms of  Nightglow™ Diervilla lure in bees and butterflies, so why not combine this stunning shrub with other pollinator favorites? Its wine-colored foliage would surely look fantastic partnered with mid-sized varieties of bee-friendly plants like yarrow, asters, blanketflower, penstemon, coneflowers, and agastache.

Where to find these 5 flowering shrubs for your garden

These gorgeous shrubs, and lots of other Bloomin’ Easy plants, are available from retail nurseries across much of Canada and the U.S. Find a retailer here or look for Bloomin’ Easy’s branded blue pots at your favorite local garden centers.

You may also find our article on low growing shrubs for the front of your house useful, too.

What are some of your favorite flowering shrubs for your garden? We’d love to hear about them in the comment section below.

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