Plants Trees, & Shrubs

At Landscape Artisan, I always ensure that any plants I choose for my projects will survive in the climate here in Michigan. I use hydrangeas, boxwoods, arborvitae, dogwoods, stewartia, ornamental grass, perennials, rhododendron, azaleas, and many more. Here are a few examples of my preferred plants, trees and shrubs.

Stewartia pseudocamellia or Japanese Stewartia

I really love this tree, primarily because of its medium size, growing up to around thirty feet, and its pyramidal to rounded shape. The Japanese Stewartia has deep green foliage, which turns yellow, red or purple in the fall. It has a smooth textured bark, which exfoliates as the tree ages. The bark has almost a lightning bolt pattern, with a mottled or camouflaged appearance with patterns of dull orange and green with grey mixed in. Perhaps the greatest benefit of this tree is that it blooms in the summer in June and July.

The flowers have five white petals with orange anthers, which although short-lived, are produced in large quantities and open over several weeks, which can often keep the tree in bloom until late August.

Pieris japonica

I like this plant for its shape, but also for its growth habit. The Pieris japonica is always interesting at a number of different times between fall and summer. The flower buds develop in late fall, covering much of the plant until early spring, when the bell shaped flowers bloom, open hanging down. The beautiful cascading flowers, which can be white, pink or red, are followed by an explosive growth of colorful new red foliage, then as the new evergreen leaves mature, they turn a bright dark green. The pieris japonica can grow as high as ten feet, unless it is pruned regularly.

Ilex crenata ‘convexa’ or Japanese Holly

I prefer to use these for their hardiness. This plant’s leaves resemble some types of boxwood, although the growth habit is quite different, being lower and more spread out, tending to have a more horizontal branching, with a flat-topped rounded shape. The leaves are small, with slightly scalloped edges and are dark green and glossy in color. They are highly suitable for mass plantings and are often used for ornamental sculptures. However, the combination of the plant’s black berries, pale new growth and the darker leaves, make this plant pleasing to the eye, whether simply left to grow or clipped into different shapes. The contrast of dark and light foliage is very attractive while the new growth is darkening over the course of a couple of months.

Buxus or Boxwood

These make wonderful small hedges along walkways and borders. Boxwoods will usually adapt well to pruning and you can decide how often the plants are to be pruned. Boxwoods grow to a height of around three or four feet, with equal spread, dense low growth. The summer foliage is leathery, medium green in color, turning a yellow/green or brown in fall. The boxwood’s flowers bloom in April, and while they are not particularly showy, they tend to be very fragrant and are also attractive to bees.

Acer palmatum or Japanese Maple

Japanese Maples are wonderful ornamental trees, their leaf shape and color, plus their branch structure, adding so much to the landscape. These plants are so valuable to my own landscaping that I can’t say enough good things about them.

These maples at first look somewhat delicate, but are in fact very hardy, with little susceptibility to insect pests or air pollutants. The Japanese Maple is a deciduous shrub or small tree, which can resemble an upside down pyramid when young, transforming into a more domed shape when mature. It comes in very diverse and striking varieties, the leaves varying from what is seen as a typical Maple, to a more lace-like leaf shape. The foliage can be anywhere from light green to a deep rich burgundy and individual plants can either be the low growing, weeping version or a shaded tree reaching up to twenty feet or more.

Chamaecyparis or False Cypress

I use many varieties of this plant in my projects. A broad, conical-shaped, sweeping evergreen, the False Cypress has graceful, flattened, fern-like branches, gently drooping at the tips. I love the feathery foliage of this plant, which ranges from a deep, dark green to yellow. The yellow in particular adds a striking contrast to the landscape.

Cornus florida or Flowering Dogwood

This is a fabulous ornamental tree, flowering with greenish-yellow petals in late April and early May. The tree also has terrific fall color, when the foliage turns a rich red-brown. The flowering dogwood can grow to thirty feet, but at the ten year mark would likely be around fifteen feet in height.

Cornus kuosa or Kousa Dogwood

This desirable ornamental tree is slightly more hardy and disease resistant than it’s cousin, Cornus florida. The tree blooms later in the spring, with a lovely flower ranging from white to cream. In addition to the beautiful flowers, these dogwoods also produce fruit, ripening in the late summer and early fall, which is extremely popular with scores of species of birds.

Ornamental grass

I use all types and varieties of ornamental grass in my projects, but am particularly fond of Little Bunny, a wonderful plant. This is a small grass growing to around a foot tall with a spread of between one and two feet. The light, airy flower plumes appear between August and October and are whitish green in color. This grass variety requires very little maintenance, has few, if any, pest issues and is highly adaptable, being used in rock gardens, borders and a wide variety of other landscape features.

Ajuga reptans

This is a mat-forming plant, offering wonderful dense ground cover with nice color. The dark green leaves with highlights of purple to bronze form a nice background to the blue/purple spike flowers, which bloom in spring. From the same family as the wild bugle, this plant is very versatile and is suitable for ground cover in the shade beneath trees or shrubs, as well as being part of a flower border fully exposed to the sun.

Fagus sylvatica or European Beech

This is a beautiful shade tree with smooth silver bark, resembling elephant skin. My favorite variety is the Tricolor Beech, which has dark green leaves with a purple hue and white and pink margins. The older the tree, the better the color of the leaves. Beech trees can grow as high as 160 feet, but the Tricolor is a slow growing variety, sometimes reaching between twenty five and forty feet, but generally smaller. Some specimens of European Beech have lived for three hundred years, but the trees don’t flower until they begin to reach maturity, when they are between thirty and eighty years old. The flowers are small catkins, which begin to bloom just after the initial appearance of the leaves in spring. The seeds, known as beechnuts, are an important food source for both birds and rodents, such as squirrels.