Few things are better than being outside on a beautiful day. Combine that with the majestic beauty of pollinating butterflies, and you have quite a sight to behold. Even with the fall planting season here, it’s never too early to start planning ahead for your perfect spring garden. Shrubs planted now will have enough time to establish themselves before the spring season. Once established, your shrubs can focus on producing bountiful and vibrant blooms of flowers. You, too, can bring butterflies to your landscape with the six great shrubs below.
This drought-tolerant flowering shrub blooms abundantly from the fall through the spring. It is an excellent addition to any desert, or low-water landscape seeking beautiful colors of bright orange trumpet-shaped blooms. The Orange Cape Honeysuckle can be trimmed as medium-to-large bushes or hedges, and are frequently used as vines to cover posts or fences.
Click to read more about the Cape Honeysuckle
One of the most colorful plants around, the Lantana thrives in the hot summer months and blooms throughout the spring and fall in purple, white, pale yellow, red, gold, or pink colors. In the winter, the Lantana will drop its foliage and then re-leaf in the very early spring. The Lantana is one of the fastest-growing ground covers and is drought tolerant.
Click to read more about the Lantana
This small accent shrub blooms beautiful red, coral or hot pink tubular flowers during the warm months in spring through the fall. This shrub needs protection from the sun and is best used in gardens, pots, rock gardens, and borders. Once established, the Autumn Sage is drought tolerant.
Click to read more about the Autumn Sage
A very hardy shrub for desert landscapes, the Texas Sage produces abundant lavender flowers in cycles that cover the entire shrub from late spring through the fall. The Texas Sage can grow in full sun, is cold hardy, and can be trimmed into shapes and hedges.
Click to read more about the Texas Sage
This drought tolerant shrub performs well in full sun and displays blooms of red, purple, and pink from the spring through the fall.
Click to read more about the Verbena
A unique plant, the Chaparral Sage’s round balls of deep purple blooms stack up the bloom stems from spring through the fall. Drought tolerant once established, the Chaparral Sage looks best when planted in well-draining soil. Prune off the bloom spikes as the flowers fade to promote new growth.
Click to read more about the Chaparral Sage
Planting now gives your shrubs a great opportunity to hit the ground running with beautiful blooms in the spring. When you visit one of our Moon Valley Nursery locations be sure to talk to our experts about ways in which you can get your flowering shrubs to bloom to the max and attract scores of butterflies to your landscape with any of our fertilizers. Our experts can help you figure out the best shrubs to plant for your region, your needs, and your dreams!