Small trees and shrubs recently introduced to landscape gardeners save maintenance time, effort and money. They are smaller than their normal-sized relatives, relatively disease and pest resistant, and offer three-to-four season color.
Memorial and meditation gardens are usually small and intimate spaces. Typical landscape trees and shrubs can overwhelm such spaces. Below are suggestions for up-to-the-minute low-maintenance landscape plants to border walks and patio areas in a small memorial garden (Figure 1).
Both Sides of Walk
Oso Easy™ Rose 'Fragrant Spreader' Shrub Rose (Figure 2)
- Size: 1 to 2' tall and wide; spreading to four or more feet wide;
- Disease Resistance: black spot or mildew;
- Bloom Time: peak bloom in early-summer, blooming intermittently all summer;
- Bloom Color: vivid pink with a white center and golden stamens.
South and West Side of Patio
'Bangle'™ Genista lydia (Figure 3)
- Size: 2' tall and 24" wide, mounding characteristic;
- Bloom Time: mid-spring and persists for 3-6 weeks;
- Bloom Color: electric yellow;
- Winter Interest: bright green stems that provide interesting year-round texture and color.
Behind and Both Sides of Benches
Lo & Behold™ 'Blue Chip' Buddleia or Butterfly Bush
- Size: 24" - 30" tall forming a tidy 30" mound; does not need pruning or deadheading;
- Bloom Time: continuous blooming, mid-summer to fall;
- Bloom Color: blue to purple-blue;
- Foliage Color: grey-green;
- Special characteristics: drought resistant and deer resistant;
- Fertilize: early spring - a slow release fertilizer specialized for trees & shrubs; follow label recommended rate of application.
Set Back from Curve in Walk on East Side
'Carol Mackie' Daphne x burkwoodii
- Size: 2-3' tall, 3-4' wide rounded with mounding habit;
- Bloom Time: April – May;
- Bloom Color: pale pink and very fragrant;
- Foliage: grayish-green with cream-colored margins; foliage may persist through December;
- Needs: summer mulch or ground cover needed to keep roots cool; soils should not dry out.
Three Plants in Triangle to East and Slightly North of Curve in Walk
'Diana' Hibiscus syriacus (Figure 4)
- Size: 5-8' tall, 4-6' wide, erect multi-stemmed shrub; may also be trained as a single trunk tree;
- Bloom Time: early-summer to autumn;
- Bloom Color: pure white flowers (4-6" diameter) with no eye, hollyhock-like, 5-petaled, stay open at night;
- Soil Type: prefers moist, organically rich soils, but tolerates poor soils and some drought;
- Light: full sun to part shade, better flowering in full sun, tolerant of summer heat and humidity.;
- 'Diana' is a sterile triploid that produces very few if any seed pods.
East and North of Patio
Sarcococca or Sweetbox - Sarcococca hookeriana var. humilis (Figure 5)
- Size: height 12 to 24", mounds to approximately the same width;
- Growth Rate: slow to moderate, spreading by stolons;
- Flower/Fruit: clusters of fragrant white flowers in later winter to early spring, .04 inch round black fruit;
- Foliage: lustrous dark evergreen lance-shaped leaves;
- Soil Type: prefers organically rich, well-drained acidic soil, but tolerates high pH (alkaline) soils;
- Light: partial shade to shade.
Shady Edges North and West of Patio
Early Spring Bulbs and Brunnera 'Jack Frost'
- Leaves are silvery white with green primary and secondary veins and a thin green rim around leaf edges;
- Forms a 20" wide hosta-like mound of heart-shaped 3-5” wide leaves which remain attractive throughout the growing season.
Plant Selection Principles Utilized in a Memorial Landscape Garden Design
Georgene A. Bramlage - Suite 101 Landscaping Feature Writer and Topic Editor Free-lance Garden and Landscape Writer and Consultant
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