Despite the fact that in summer the garden pleases with a riot of colors, many owners want to add some more bright and original touches to the landscape. Decorative shrubs for giving with red leaves successfully cope with this task.
These plants are able to transform your summer cottage beyond recognition. Such shrubs put the right emphasis, allowing the garden to look bright and original at any time of the year. Today we will introduce you to some of them.
Purple leaf barberries
It is not for nothing that we begin our review with these shrubs with red leaves. They are very fond of using landscape designers, and gardeners appreciated the beauty of these plants. The red-leafed barberry attracts purple foliage from early spring. He does not cease to please with decorativeness until the onset of the first frosts.
These unpretentious shrubs, which harmoniously fit into any landscape, have long been welcome guests in many garden plots of the middle lane. Thanks to its unsurpassed decorative characteristics, barberry can be used everywhere - in combination with conifers, as a hedge, in single plantings. Below we will present you the most popular varieties.
Ottawa Barberry Superba
Shrub, whose height is about three meters, of incredible beauty. It features exquisite flowering and is a worthy decoration of any suburban area. The barberry bush of this variety has a fairly large, sprawling, with long annual growth, crown. Numerous shoots are armed with large thorns.
Burgundy leaves have a slight metallic tint in the summer. In autumn, the leaves turn bright red. Flowering begins in May. Shrubs are covered with yellow with a red border flowers that gather in racemose inflorescences. They have a strong and very pleasant smell.
Fruits effectively hang on curved branches, somewhat elongated, edible, with a characteristic sour taste. They are also painted bright red. The plant is photophilous, but tolerates partial shade. In sunny areas, the color of the leaves is more saturated.
The bush tolerates extreme heat and drought, is undemanding to the composition of the soil, but develops better on alkaline soils. It does not tolerate moisture stagnation. It is used as a tapeworm on the lawn, to create massifs, in ordinary plantings, in curbs, growing hedges.
Barberry of Thunberg
Bright representative of a large family. Such barberry bushes are beautiful in winter - against the background of snow, its reddish stems covered with small spines look very impressive. In the spring, when the plant awakens, its leaves are painted in an unusually beautiful copper-red color and, contrasting with them, the tassels of yellow flowers open. In summer, the leaves of Thunberg's barberry are painted in rich purple shades, and in autumn, shrubs simply mesmerize with their beauty. Bright colors of flame cover the entire bush from the bottom to the ends of elegant and elongated branches.
Thunberg Barberry has many varieties. We will talk about the most common red ornamental shrubs.
Atropurpurea nana
This is perhaps the most popular Tunberg barberry. A miniature shrub with red leaves, the height of which does not exceed sixty centimeters. The crown is compact, flat-round. It has a rather slow growth. It blooms with beautiful flowers: they are yellow inside, and bright red outside, forming racemose inflorescences. Bright red fruits persist on branches throughout the winter.
The leaves are small, at first they are painted in dark red (almost black) color, then they become saturated red. In the fall they get a bright red color. To soils, the plant is undemanding, well established in urban conditions.
Admiration
Miniature shrub with red leaves of extraordinary beauty. An adult plant does not exceed 50 cm in height, and this is with the same size of the diameter of the crown, which has a rounded shape. She is very dense. Small red leaves with an original thin yellow border.
The flowers are yellow, with a slight reddish tint, can be single or in bunches. Flowering occurs in May. Oblong fruits, raspberry red, fully ripen in October.
It is undemanding to soils, it is perfectly developed in urban conditions. It grows best in well-lit areas. Used to create low borders, in stony hills, in compositions, for single and group landing.
Bagatelle
Extraordinarily good dwarf shrubs with red leaves. An example of this is Bagatelle. Its height is about forty centimeters, while the diameter of the crown can reach a meter. The annual growth in width and height is about three centimeters.
These unpretentious shrubs have a rather dense crown. The leaves are egg-shaped, no more than one and a half centimeters long, dark red. In the fall, they become carmine red.
Blooms in May with yellow-red small flowers, collected in beautiful brushes. Fruits are bright red, shiny, up to a centimeter in size. As a rule, ripen in early October.
It is undemanding to soils, tolerates short-term drought well. It is used in rockeries, discounts, group landings, rock gardens, borders.
Southern skumpiya
These shrubs with red leaves prefer regions with a hot climate - the Caucasus, the Mediterranean, and Crimea. With the beginning of autumn, their foliage is painted in scarlet, dark pink or orange. At first, streaks become scarlet, and then a bright color spreads throughout the leaf blade. Mackerel has beautiful large leaves, shaggy pink inflorescences, which are successfully used in decorative art.
In countries with a warm climate, this plant is very popular for decorating personal plots and gardens, parks, squares. Looks great in a single landing and in landscape compositions, it is used to create hedges. It is recommended to plant in well-lit areas, but they must be protected from drafts and gusts of wind.
This plant does not require frequent watering: once every few weeks is enough. Fertilizers are applied to the soil in autumn or spring, before the appearance of inflorescences. As top dressing, phosphate or mineral fertilizers are used. It is interesting that if you grind a leaf of scumpia in your hands, you can smell the carrots.
Scumpia is especially beautiful during the flowering period, which usually occurs in the second half of summer. Paniculate branching inflorescences from a distance resemble clouds. When the flowers fall, pink pedicels remain. Thanks to them, the plant received a second name - a wig tree, since these threads are very reminiscent of thick hair.
The plant is unpretentious to soils, feels comfortable in the garden, can grow even on rocky soils. But it also has a significant drawback: it is not too winter-hardy.
Red japanese maple
If you like a riot of red shades on your site, then pay attention to the red Japanese maple. This shrub has a voluminous crown. At first, its foliage is painted in a bright green color, but at the end of summer it becomes reddish-orange, and then it acquires a bright red, carmine hue.
Japanese maple has many varieties, each of which differs in the color of foliage: Aconitifolium variety - with orange-red leaves, Vitifolium - with carmine-red. But the most popular - Atropurpureum - with dark red foliage. These large shrubs look great anywhere, prefer penumbra, are in perfect harmony with coniferous plants, ferns, hosts.
Shrub spindle tree
This is the perfect decoration for a garden. In our country, the euonymus shrub has several more names: wolfberry, wolf earrings, bruslin, night blindness. The plant is actively used in landscape design. This is due to the high decorative qualities and ease of care for him.
Fortune euonymus
Compact undersized shrub, not exceeding sixty centimeters in height. He is from China. It has many varieties that are distinguished by the variegated color of the foliage. This plant can be shaped like a bush or creeper using ropes. With its aerial roots, the euonymus will cling to any support. Depending on the variety, the leaves have a different color fringing.
Bubbleweed Kalinifolia Diable d'Or Mindia
Dense, fairly tall shrub (about two meters) with straight shoots. The leaves are dark purple; young bushes have orange shoots. The flowers are white, semi-double and very fragrant.
The plant needs nutritious, moist, slightly acidic soils and a well-lit area for planting. It can be used both in group plantings, and in single ones to create hedges, contrast groups.
Bubble Clover Little Devil Donna May
A low-growing miniature variety whose height does not exceed eighty centimeters. The leaves are small, painted in dark purple. They retain their decorative effect throughout the season. Flowering begins in early June, when small white flowers appear on the plant, collected in a corymbose inflorescence.
Shrub undemanding to moisture. It tolerates drought. In order for this variety to please with a bright saturated color of foliage, it must be planted in sunny areas. This plant needs annual formative pruning, which comes down to pruning damaged and weak shoots in early spring. It is used as an accent plant in group plantings and for creating hedges.
As you can see, not only flowers can decorate a garden. Various shrubs with red leaves can give it a special appeal. It is not necessary that they be blooming. Magnificent foliage of different shades of red will bring originality and sophistication to the landscape.