If you’re planning your garden, you must make sure to include some white in your borders and flower beds. I love to introduce this color into my garden is by adding a few white flowering shrubs in my design.
White flowering shrubs help to accentuate the other flower colors in yourgarden. It also keeps your landscape from becoming too busy or hectic.
Shrubs are great for encouraging wildlife into your garden, and for adding some evergreen structure to your outdoor space, providing interest when other plants have died back for the year.
But how do you decide which is the best white flowering shrub for your garden? There are certainly a few to choose from, and we’ve listed five of our favorites below to help make choosing a little bit easier.
Let’s start with our top pick…
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White Flowering Shrubs – Comparison Table
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White Flowering Shrubs – Reviews
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Similar to the leaves of a holly bush, the evergreen foliage of the Osmanthus Tea Olive ‘Fortunes’ are spiky, which doesn’t only give this plant a great deal of architectural interest, but also makes it a desirable place for birds to nest in thanks to its extra layer of protection.
One of the most interesting things about this shrub, however, is that the flowers appear from October through to December.
This means that you’ll be getting blooms in your garden long after most other plants have finished flowering for the year, and it also offers a reliable later source of food for pollinating insects before they head into hibernation.
The blooms are also highly fragranced, which makes it a superb choice for planting near doorways or garden gates, where you’ll still be able to enjoy its beautiful scent without having to venture too far into your garden during winter.
Happy being planted in full sun or partial shade, a full-grown Tea Olive bush can grow up to 15-20 feet tall and equally as wide.
It’s also a really good shrub to use if you’re trying to create some privacy when you’re too close to your neighbors, or if you’d like to create natural, tall boundaries throughout your garden.
- The spiky, evergreen foliage adds architectural interest to your garden and provides a safe space for birds to nest in spring
- An abundance of white, fragrant flowers appear from October through to December
- Ideal for planting in full sun or partial shade
- Can grow up to 20’ tall, making it a great choice for creating privacy from nearby houses
- Although the spiky leaves are fantastic for wildlife, they aren’t exactly child-friendly so it might not be the best choice for a family garden that gets a lot of inquisitive children running around it
Pictures of white flowering shrubs
Some of us are better than others at envisioning how a specific type or color of the flower in the landscape. Here are some pictures of my favorite shrubs with white flowers.
Abbotswood Potentilla
Covered in beautiful, pure white flowers, this shrub blooms profusely at the beginning of summer and keeps blooming throughout the summer until the first frost.
Annabelle Hydrangeas
These hydrangeas are easy to care for and work well in just about any garden. Create a romantic feel to your landscape when you add Annabelle hydrangeas to your gardens.
White Oleander
Full of lush, lance-shaped shiny green leaves the white oleander flowers pop with vibrancy. The single white flowers have a sweet and subtle scent.
Japanese White Spirea
Beautiful fuzzy white blooms, perfect for edging. We have a pink spirea edge on our driveaway. So pretty! Butterflies and bees LOVE it too!
Autumn Ivory™ Encore® Azalea
Small, sophisticated, white shrubs, these ivory azaleas are perfect little bloomers you can place in your moon garden. We have an orange/pink-colored bush we’ve been enjoying for many years. Stays green year-round, even when the flowers are gone.
Blanc Double de Coubert Hybrid Rugosa Rose
This fast-growing rose bush has a delicate scent and a beautiful look. Sadly, the flowers do not last long: the petals drop after only a couple of days.
White Flowering Shrubs Buyer’s Guide
White flowering bushes are great, no doubt about it. But before you decide which one would be the best choice for your garden, take a look at the suggestions below. You’ll learn about many
This will help you ensure that the plant you’re choosing is perfectly matched to your outdoor space and will continue to grow healthy and happy.
Where to plant?
The first thing you need to think about is where your new shrubs will be planted. Is it in full sun, partial shade or full shade? Once you’ve taken the time to survey the area and know how much sun it gets throughout the day, you can then start looking at what plants thrive best in those conditions.
A flowering shrub that is happiest in full sun will do better when planted in a sunny corner of the garden. Likewise, a shrub that prefers shade will do better when placed in that position.
How high will it grow?
As with the planting position, it’s important to think about how tall your white flowering shrub is likely to get, and to make sure that it doesn’t bully out or overshadow any surrounding plants.
Some shrubs can reach up to 20 feet or more in height, so make sure you’ve got adequate space for them to grow in before purchasing.
Flowering period
The next thing to give some thought to is when you’d like the blooms on your white flowering shrub to appear.
Summer flowers will work well with other colors in the surrounding planting area. And, as you’re likely to be out in your garden more frequently throughout the summer months, you’ll be able to see and enjoy them on a daily basis.
However, some white flowering shrubs bloom throughout the winter months. These make a good choice if you’d like to add some interest to your garden when most other plants have finished flowering until next year.
Foliage
As with the flowering period, it’s important to think about the shrub’s foliage and its growth pattern.
Shrubs that have deciduous foliage will lose their leaves in fall and have bare branches through winter, reappearing in spring.
If you’d like some year-round color and structure, it would be a good idea to look for an evergreen shrub. This means that the leaves will stay in place on the plant throughout each season, and will help your garden look less bare throughout the winter. Some shrubs may even have pretty berries in the winter.
Fragrance
It’s always nice to have fragrance in the garden.
Some white flowering shrubs are also quite heavily scented. That means you’ll be able to enjoy the fragrance as it’s carried by the wind. You don’t need to plant these right by your front door to enjoy them.
But others will only have a faint scent, and if you want to enjoy that, you’ll need to plant them on your porch, or in a large container by your entrance. You can then stop and get a sniff every time you walk by.
A healthy nature ecosystem
There are also some key things to look for in a white flowering shrub if you’d like to encourage more wildlife into your garden.
Flowers will always bring in bees, butterflies, and other pollinating insects. However, a shrub that flowers later in the year will provide these with a reliable source of food when it’s a little more scarce, helping to set them up for hibernation.
Evergreen foliage will also provide overwintering insects and mammals with a safe space to spend the winter months. Any foliage that is spiky or irregularly shaped will help add an extra layer of defense to any birds that choose to nest in your shrub during spring.
Adriana Copaceanu is a passionate nature lover living in the country on her dream property where she grows vegetables, lavender, and wildflowers that she shares with the wildlife they attract. When she's not in the garden, she loves spending time with her chickens and planning her next nature project. Check out her books below:
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