The 14 Most Common Types of Shrubs in 2024

Shrubs help improve the aesthetics of your landscaping, attract wildlife, and provide privacy. 

We have composed a list of the main types of shrubs to add color to your yard space and give your home more curb appeal any time of the year. 

What Makes Shrubs a Popular Choice? 

Shrubs fall into two categories: the evergreen, which keeps its leaves throughout the year, and the deciduous, which loses its leaves in the winter. 

When we think of landscaping, trees often come to mind, but shrubs are also an excellent choice for the front of house landscaping.

Similar to trees, shrubs offer several benefits to attractive landscaping, including vibrant flowers, wonderful scents, and several other features, such as:

• Shrubs add value to our backyards
• Shrubs provide a source of food, such as raspberry bushes and wild raisin shrubs
• Shrubs attract birds, butterflies, and pollinators to your yard
• Shrubs help us to de-stress by adding a source of nature to our landscaping

14 Types of Shrubs to Enhance Landscaping

Many landowners are turning to shrubs to add color to their landscaping and gardens.

Not only are shrubs perennials, but they are also easy to maintain and brighten any yard. Here is a list of our top choices of shrubs to help boost the curb appeal of your home.

1. Blue Sun Juniper (Juniperus Squamata ‘Blue Star’)

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• Sun exposure: Full sun
• Plant height: 1 to 3 feet
• USDA zones: 4 to 8

The Blue Sun Jupiter is a colorful blue shrub, perfect for foundations, ground coverage, garden edges, and small yards. 

This easy-to-grow shrub offers a colorful display of blue foliage that adds vibrance to any yard space with little maintenance.

Gardeners can enjoy the blooms of the Blue Sun Juniper all season long. The Blue Sun Juniper thrives in open spaces with plenty of room to expand. Gardeners can enjoy the beauty of its silver-blue foliage all year long. 

2. Butterfly Bush (Buddleja)

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• Sun exposure: Full sun
• Plant height: 4 to 15 feet
• USDA zones: 5 to 9

The butterfly bush, or lilac bush, is another popular shrub choice for many homeowners. This vibrant bush offers fragrant blooms in early spring that last throughout the season. 

This large shrub offers privacy and comes in several colors, from pink and white to purple. The butterfly bush also attracts birds and butterflies to your garden with its sweet fragrance. 

This fragrant spring flower is ideal for cut-flower arrangements and provides a pleasant aroma. 

3. Flame Amur Maple (Acer Ginala)

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• Sun exposure: Direct sun
• Plant Height: 20 feet
• USDA zones: 3 to 8

The Flame Amur Maple shrub is native to Asia and Europe, but many gardeners also plant it in North America. This beautiful shrub is easy to maintain and offers an ideal source of privacy during the summer. 

This vibrant fall-colored plant makes an excellent shrub for anyone who loves fall colors.

This beautiful shrub is low-maintenance and features bright red leaves in autumn, just in time for the festive seasons of Thanksgiving and Halloween.

The Flame Amur Maple shrub is an excellent alternative to maple trees for gardeners with small spaces looking for vibrant fall foliage. 

4. Ice Dragon Spiraea (Spiraea Japonica)

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• Sun exposure: Full sun
• Plant height: 3 to 4 feet
• USDA zones: 4 to 9

The Ice Dragon Spiraea is an attractive shrub that is low-maintenance. This beautiful shrub features large pink flowers with bluish-green foliage. 

The Ice Dragon is the perfect addition to your balcony or garden and blooms in late spring throughout the growing season. The Ice Dragon Spiraea is available for purchase online. 

5. Japanese Barberry (Berberis Thunbergii)

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• Sun exposure: Full to partial sun
• Plant height: 2 to 8 feet
• USDA zones: 4 to 9

The Japanese barberry is another popular shrub this year. It comes in a vast selection of colors, from yellow, orange, and red to beautiful shades of violet. 

The thorns on this shrub offer an excellent deterrent for wildlife to stay out of your gardens. Keep this in mind if you have pets or young children that may come into contact with the branches.

Japanese barberry thorns sting when they come into contact with your skin. This vibrant plant offers blooms in early spring, with fruits maturing by mid-summer that last throughout the year. 

6. Lantana (Lantana Horrida)

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• Sun exposure: Full sun
• Plant height: 2 to 6 feet
• USDA zones: 8 to 11

The Lantana is an elegant shrub that offers beautiful clusters of colorful blooms ranging from red to orange and vibrant yellow. This gorgeous shrub is easy to care for and blooms from early spring until fall.

Maintenance requires the occasional trim during blooming to promote continuous blooms throughout the entire growing season. 

This colorful addition to your landscaping designs attracts birds, butterflies, and hummingbirds to your garden, who enjoy the fragrant seeds from the blooms. 

7. Pineapple Guava (Acca sellowiana)

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• Sun exposure: Full or partial sun
• Plant height: 10 to 15 feet
• USDA zones: 8 to 11

Pineapple Guava is an eye-catching shrub that offers bright green foliage with contrasting white blooms and red stems. This shrub produces a fruit that tastes similar in flavor to guava fruit.

The fragrant scent of the fruit attracts hummingbirds and other types of birds to your garden. The pineapple guava shrub makes an excellent addition to any landscape and offers privacy and shade to your backyard spaces.

8. Purple Smoke Bush (Cotinus coggygria)

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• Sun exposure: Full sun
• Plant height: 12 to 15 feet
• USDA zones: 4 to 9

The Purple Smoke Bush is another shrub that is well-loved by many homeowners for its airy display of purple puffs of flowers in the spring and summer. The blooms turn shades of gray in the fall and resemble puffs of smoke.

This lovely bush is an excellent source of privacy and adds vibrant color to any landscape. Landscapers often use the Purple Smoke Bush as a centerpiece for front walkways.

9. Rose of Sharon (Hibiscus syriacus)

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• Sun exposure: Full or partial sun
• Plant height: 3 to 4 feet
• USDA zones: 5 to 9

The Rose of Sharon is a flowering shrub that blooms in the spring and again in the late summer to add color to your autumn gardens. 

This easy-to-grow shrub offers fall blooms until the first frost of the season and requires very little care to maintain its beauty. 

The colors of the vibrant blooms found in the Rose of Sharon range from white, blue, lavender, and red. This vibrant shrub adds a splash of color to all your landscaping ideas. 

10. Rugosa Rose (Rosa Rugosa)

Andrejs Marcenko/Shutterstock

• Sun exposure: Full or partial sun
• Plant height: 3 to 4 feet
• USDA zones: 3 to 9

The Rugosa Rose is one of the most popular choices of shrubs to decorate any landscape. This beautiful flowering shrub is easy to grow and features large, vibrant flowers that add color to your gardens.

This hardy plant blooms in spring and lasts until early to mid-summer. The Rugosa Rose thrives with plenty of open space to expand and spread.

The fragrant blooms of the Rugosa rose attract hummingbirds, butterflies, and bumblebees to your gardens. 

11. Texas Rock Rose (Pavonia lasiopetala)

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• Sun exposure: Sun or partial shade
• Plant height: 3 to 4 feet
• USDA zones: 8 to 9

The Texas Rock Rose is a native shrub in Texas. However, it also grows well in other locations around the world, from zones 8 to 9. 

This flowery shrub offers pretty pink blooms that flower in the morning and close early in the afternoon to avoid bright sunlight. 

The Texas Rock Rose blooms from early spring until the first frost of autumn and offers color to any landscaping. 

12. Texas Sage (Salvia coccinea)

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• Sun exposure: Full or partial sun
• Plant height: 2 to 4 feet
• USDA zones: 8 to 11

The Texas Sage is a fall shrub that offers a variety of choices of blooms, from pink and white to vibrant red. 

This root-hardy perennial blooms from early spring to late fall and brightens any garden. For the best-growing results, plant your Texas Sage in the fall for early spring blooms.

This brightly colored shrub is ideal for borders and attracts hummingbirds to your flowerbeds with its vibrant blooms and sweet scent.

The Texas Sage is an excellent addition to your landscaping for early spring blooms that last throughout the growing seasons. 

13. Witch Hazel (Hamamelis Virginiana)

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• Sun exposure: Full to partial sun
• Plant height: 10 to 30 feet
• USDA zones: 4 to 8

Witch Hazel is a beautiful shrub that offers bright yellow blooms in late autumn and early winter. This hardy plant is tolerant of disease and pests and grows well with little maintenance. 

The leaves from the Witch Hazel shrub are edible and used to make medicine to treat ailments such as fevers, the flu, and colds. 

Witch Hazel is a beautiful addition to your landscaping ideas and adds a touch of class to any yard. 

14. Yellow Bells (Esperanza)

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• Sun exposure: Full sun
• Plant height: 6 to 8 feet
• USDA zones: 8 to 11

The Yellow Bell is another perennial shrub that features yellow bell-shaped blooms throughout the growing season, from early spring to late fall.

The sweet lemon smell from this eye-catching shrub attracts many butterflies and hummingbirds to your garden. The Yellow Bells shrub is a perennial and comes up each spring to brighten your landscaping.

Frequently Asked Questions

Here are some of the most common questions regarding the different types of shrubs.

So, What Is the Best Type of Shrub?

With so many choices of shrubs, it was difficult to narrow our search down to just 14.

We hope you enjoyed our selections and that we provided you with some excellent shrub choices to add to your landscaping.