Flirtatious Flowering Shrubs to Create Old-World Elegance and Charm in Southern Gardens
Flirtatious Flowering Shrubs to Create Old-World Elegance and Charm in Southern Gardens
Julie Thompson-Adolf for Proven Winners® ColorChoice® Shrubs
Photos Courtesy of Proven Winners® ColorChoice®
Are Y’All Ready for Romance?
Big, beautiful blooms. Lush, flowering borders. Cascading Spanish moss that nearly kisses the ground. While grand-scale romantic southern gardens might make us swoon, the reality of our garden spaces typically proves a little less extravagant. Still, no matter the size of your yard, creating a dreamy, romantic garden is easy with a little planning—and the right plants.
Unlike formal gardens, where the goal involves controlling nature into tidy, rigid knot gardens and parterres, romantic gardens emphasize emotion and exuberance. Instead of rigid gardens, romantic gardens include winding paths, scenic vistas, naturalistic features, and secret garden nooks. Layers of fabulous flowers and fragrance delight the senses, making visitors linger along paths. Lush borders, perfumed pleasures, scent and sensuality create a romantic garden, inspiring poetry as butterflies flit from bloom to bloom.
Let Us Play Matchmaker!
While some romantic gardens may seem labor-intensive, designing a romantic southern garden with Proven Winners® ColorChoice® Flowering Shrubs creates a low-maintenance, gorgeous space you’ll enjoy for years—without spending hours on upkeep.
From sweet, blowsy blooms to tough, heat and drought-tolerant shrubs, we’ve curated a fabulous selection of shrubs perfect for a romantic southern garden.
Gardener’s Tip:
When you plan your garden, pay attention to light. For excellent flowering or vibrant, colorful foliage, many plants need full sun—6+ hours daily. In extremely hot southern summer gardens, try to site the plants where they’ll receive full sun in the morning—and a bit of afternoon shade during the hottest part of the day. Your plants will thank you.
Steady As She Goes® Gardenia(Gardenia jasminoides)
Gardenia
The seductive scent of gardenias…is there a more romantic fragrance? With their old-world charm, gardenias belong in every southern garden. Traditionally used in corsages and boutonnieres, the swoon-worthy fragrance makes perfume unnecessary. But when tragic late frosts appear, many gardenias succumb to cold temperatures—while others wilt in sultry summer heat.
Until now.
‘Steady As She Goes®’ gardenia delivers gorgeous blooms—even when cold snaps hit. This cold-hardy gardenia produces fully double, prolific flowers throughout the summer. And while some gardenias wither in summer’s high heat, this beauty keeps her cool, blooming beautifully all season long until first frost. You’ll love the elegant, creamy-white flowers that pop against the glossy, dark green foliage, making a gorgeous addition to a moon garden.
Light: Full sun (6+ hours) to part sun (4-6 hours)
Size: 3-5’ tall, 4-7’ wide
Soil: Consistently moist, well-draining
Zone: 7-10
Deer Resistant
Flavorette™ Honey-Apricot Edible Rose (Rosa x)
Rose
Roses not only symbolize romance, love, and passion—but also provide the perfect addition to romantic gardens. With their stunning blooms and fabulous fragrance, roses add an ideal aesthetic to winding garden paths, layered borders, or pretty trellises.
While edible rose petals often adorn dinners as a pretty embellishment, Flavorette™ Honey-Apricot edible rose provides a unique, distinctive flavor profile that’s more than just a gorgeous garnish—it becomes an integral part of the recipe. Its sensuous texture and sweet, fruity flavor delivers a delicious addition to your favorite recipes. With hints of ripe apricots and warm honey, you’ll enjoy the romantic, sensory experience that begins in the garden and continues to the vase, kitchen, and palate. To make this charming rose even better, it blooms continuously throughout summer without deadheading, plus it’s low-maintenance and disease-resistant, giving you more time to enjoy its intoxicating fragrance as you stroll through the garden and prepare a romantic dinner à deux with its flavorful petals.
Light: Full sun (6+ hours)
Size: 3-4’ tall/wide
Soil: Average, well-draining
Zone: 4-8
Gardener’s Tip:
If you plan to use edible flowers in your meals, make sure to grow them organically. Forgo chemicals and sprays, because there’s nothing less romantic than getting ill from pesticides!
Rise Up Lilac Days™ Rose (Rosa x)
Mini Climbing Rose
Imagine a gorgeously fragrant, outrageously pretty rose scrambling up a trellis or fence near your favorite secret reading nook in the garden. Now, imagine a low-maintenance, disease-resistant plant with lovely lilac blooms that flowers consistently even in the harsh heat of summer. Rise Up Lilac Days™ rose will be your new favorite addition to your southern garden. This nearly thornless, rambling climber adds the perfect romantic feel to your garden, with waves of lilac-blue, semi-double blooms covering the plant throughout the summer until frost. Ideal for arches, this mini-climber minds its manners, staying neat and dense, not scraggly and spotty. In fact, its high resistance to black spot makes this beauty an easy addition to your garden, giving you time to relax with a glass of sweet tea while you enjoy its fabulous fragrance and flowers. If you need a pretty landscape shrub, you can turn this polite climber into a lovely focal point with a bit of pruning. Versatile and beautiful—now that’s a romantic rose!
Classic hydrangeas add old-world elegance and charm to southern gardens, but the new kids in town are about to turn up the romantic vibes in your life! There’s a reason Fairytrail Bride® Cascade Hydrangea® won “Plant of the Year” at the world-famous Chelsea Flower Show: it’s a whole new class of hydrangea, ready to add easy, romantic aesthetics to your garden. This cascading hydrangea boasts long, trailing stems with bouquets of pure white, lacecap flowers at every leaf node, creating a dazzling, lacy display. Use this incredibly versatile hydrangea anywhere you need to create interest: hanging baskets, cascading containers, borders, or cascading over a rock wall. Not only does this beauty brighten evening gardens, the florets lure bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds to your garden, too. This showstopper is sure to attract attention—and maybe a little envy from your neighbors.
Light: Full sun (6+ hours) to part sun (4-6 hours)
The first smooth hydrangea with stunning plum-purple lacecap flowers and dark, ruby-hued stems makes the ideal addition to your romantic southern garden. You may already know our fabulous Invincibelle® series of hydrangeas—but Invincibelle Lace® offers a truly unique, ethereal plant for your space. Combining a naturalistic look and feel with modern-day performance, you’ll find fantastic color, strong stems, and repeat blooms that last all summer—without deadheading. Use it to create a gorgeous hedge, add it to your pollinator garden, or plant a specimen near the front porch, where you can watch pollinators play. This pretty plant makes a wonderful addition to cutting gardens, too. Fill your vases with the lovely lavender blooms to enjoy on your kitchen table.
Light: Full sun (6+ hours) to part sun (4-6 hours)
Size: 4-5’ tall/wide
Soil: Average
Zone: 3-8
Azurri Blue Satin® Rose of Sharon (Hibiscus syriacus)
Rose of Sharon
If you long for elusive blue flowers in your garden, you’re in luck: Azurri Blue Satin® rose of Sharon adds a gorgeous burst of ruffly blue blooms in your garden—without invading your space. This new cultivar produces romantic, billowy seedless blooms, unlike other rose of Sharon varieties that spread rampantly in every nook and crevice due to prolific seeding. This stunning, low-maintenance shrub bursts into bloom in early summer—and keeps going throughout the season, requiring no deadheading or pruning. It performs well in southern heat and drought—and it’s even an excellent choice for beach gardens, as it tolerates salt as well. Pollinators love it—but deer don’t, so plant this beauty, relax, and enjoy the spectacular show.
Light: Full sun (6+ hours)
Size: 8-12’ tall, 6-10’ wide
Soil: Average
Zone: 5-9
Deer Resistant Drought-tolerant
Gardener’s Tip:
When you choose a plant that’s labeled “drought-tolerant,” remember that it will need some TLC for the first year, as it settles in and establishes strong roots. Make sure to water your shrub weekly during dry spells. With a little extra care during its first year, you’ll enjoy a lovely, low-maintenance, drought-tolerant shrub for years.
Pollypetite® Rose of Sharon (Hibiscus sp.)
Rose of Sharon
Even small spaces can grow into wildly romantic gardens—it’s just the old adage of “right plant, right place.” After all, a 12-foot rose of Sharon overwhelms a petite backyard, but a three-foot beautifully blooming shrub adds just the right ambiance. Pollypetite® rose of Sharon is the perfect addition for smaller spaces. Its big, beautiful, lavender-pink ruffled blooms decorate a compact form. You’ll enjoy the romantic ambiance of frilly, lush flowers contrasting beautifully with handsome, dark blue-green foliage. These low-maintenance beauties look great, even in southern high heat and drought. Pollinators love the flowers, deer dislike them, and these gorgeous blooms rarely produce seeds, making it a great choice for your small space garden.
Light: Full sun (6+ hours)
Size: 3-4’ tall/ wide
Soil: Average
Zone: 5-9
Deer Resistant
Which will you choose to create your romantic garden? Pick your favorite flowers, fragrances, and forms, and create the romantic southern garden of your dreams. Wander the paths with an icy beverage, pluck a blossom and slip it behind your ear, and relax on the perfect tucked-away bench surrounded by beautiful blooms with your sugar. Shhhh—we’ll never tell that y’all disappeared for a little romance!
All articles are copyrighted and remain the property of the author.
Few bulbs are easier to grow than amaryllis-and few bloom with greater exuberance and beauty. But many just toss them at the end of their initial show.
Importantly there are tricks to get them to bloom again. Click here for an informative article about extending the life of amaryllis.
Click here to sign up for our monthly NEWSLETTER packed with great articles and helpful tips for your home, garden and pets!
