Flowering shrubs can bring color, interest and fragrance to your garden even after the spring-blooming forsythia, viburnums and lilacs have had their day. “There doesn’t need to be a lull until the hydrangeas bloom in late June or early July,” said Spencer Campbell, Plant Clinic manager at The Morton Arboretum in Lisle. Consider planting shrubs that bloom in late spring and early summer.
These shrubs will support wildlife with their pollen and fruit and add enchantment to the longer evenings. Here are some good shrub suggestions from the Plant Clinic. For more ideas, use the Arboretum’s Search Trees and Plants tool ( ) and apply the filter by season of interest.
This shrub is known for the distinctive fruity scent of its large, unusual maroon flowers, which is why it is known to some as sweetshrub or strawberry bush. A large plant, up to 10 feet tall and quite wide, it has a dense, rounded habit and lustrous, dark green leaves that turn yellow in fall. Interesting fruits persist into winter.
Although it is native to the southeastern United States, as far south as Florida, it is fully winter-hardy in Chicago’s Zone 6 and in the even colder Zones 4 and 5. It will grow in full sun to part shade and tolerates clay soil, though it prefers better drainage. Carolina allspice tends to form colonies in the wild, so remove suckers to keep it under control.
Ninebark is a large, upright, spreading shrub that has tiny pinkish-white flowers along its branches in late May to June..
