Shrubs for Summer

Get the most structure and looks out of summer with these shrubs

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  Plant Guide

  Summersweet

  In summer, ‘Sixteen Candles’ is topped with aromatic, erect, butterfly-enticing white blooms for 4 to 6 weeks. In fall, the leaves turn an attractive yellow.
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  Plant Guide

  Chaste Tree

  Bright blue flower panicles begin to form in early summer and continue through the heat of the season and into fall.
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  Design

  Summer Wine™ Ninebark

  This selection has outstanding burgundy leaves all summer long and produces striking, soft pink blossoms in early summer. The combination is quite stunning.
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  Plant Guide

  Butterfly bush

  This sun-lover comes in hues from pure white to deepest purple. From midsummer until frost, butterfly bush earns its name as hordes of winged beauties flit from flower to flower in search of nectar. The lanceolate leaves are 10 to 12 inches long and white or grayish underneath. The honey-scented flowers are deep purple and grow in spikes, from July to October.
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  Design

  False Spirea

  If you like plants that stay in tidy, little assigned corners, this is not the plant for you. But if you have a large space to fill and love plants with attitude, this is your baby.
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  Design

  Indigofera

  Indigofera loves the heat, loves the sun, and shuns most garden pests. This rather obscure member of the pea family sports erect pink spikes of flowers starting in May and continues to bloom sporadically through much of the summer.
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  Genus

  Spirea

  Spirea are grown primarily for their small but profuse white, yellow, pink, or purple flowers in spring or summer. Use spirea in a mixed or shrub border, as a groundocver, in a rock garden, or as hedging, depending on growth habit.
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  Plant Guide

  'Nikko Blue' bigleaf hydrangea

  This is a well-loved and vigorous cultivar with large, rounded flower heads of a rich, gorgeous blue.