If you’re looking to add some color and texture to your North Texas landscape, flowering shrubs are a great choice.
These versatile plants provide year-round interest with their foliage and blooms, and can even attract pollinators to your garden.
Here are some of the best flowering shrubs for North Texas:
- Indian Hawthorn (Rhaphiolepis indica) – This evergreen shrub produces clusters of pink or white flowers in the spring, followed by dark berries in the summer. It’s drought tolerant and can grow in full sun or part shade.
- Crape myrtle (Lagerstroemia indica) – This iconic Southern shrub is popular for its showy summer blooms in shades of pink, purple, and white. It’s also drought tolerant and can handle full sun.
- Dwarf bottlebrush (Callistemon citrinus ‘Little John’) – This compact shrub produces bright red bottlebrush-shaped flowers in the spring and summer. It’s a great choice for smaller gardens or containers.
- Texas sage (Leucophyllum frutescens) – This desert native produces purple or pink flowers in the summer and fall, and has silvery foliage that adds interest year-round. It’s drought tolerant and prefers full sun.
- Rose of Sharon (Hibiscus syriacus) – This deciduous shrub produces large, showy blooms in shades of pink, purple, and white in late summer and fall. It can grow in full sun or part shade.
- Mexican buckeye (Ungnadia speciosa) – Mexican buckeye is a wonderful little Texas native tree that’s a real show-stopper in late winter and early spring, putting on a beautiful floral display for a short few weeks just as it’s putting on new leaves for the year.
- Vitex (Vitex agnus-castus) – Vitex agnus-castus, commonly known as chaste tree or chasteberry, is a shrub or tree native to Europe and Asia that prefers hot weather and is hardy in zones 7 to 8. In cooler climates, it can be severely pruned to the ground and will usually regrow. It is widely cultivated in warm temperate and subtropical regions for its delicate-textured, aromatic foliage and butterfly-attracting midsummer spikes of lavender flowers opening in late summer in cooler climates.
- Esperanza (Tecoma stans) – Also known as Yellow Bells, Yellow Trumpet Flower, or Yellow Elder, is a multi-branched shrub that belongs to the Bignoniaceae or Trumpet Creeper family. It is native to the Americas and is widely cultivated as an ornamental plant due to its showy yellow trumpet-like flowers that bloom from spring through frost, with peak flowering in summer. The plant can grow up to 15 to 30 feet tall and 10 to 30 feet wide in its native habitat, but it usually stays smaller in the United States.
- Red Yucca (Hesperaloe parviflora) – Red Yucca is a tough, drought-tolerant shrub that is native to the deserts of Texas and northeastern Mexico. Despite its name, it is not a true yucca plant but is a member of the century plant family. Red yucca produces showy, reddish coral blooms from spring through midsummer, and in warmer climates, it may bloom year-round. The shrub has leathery, arching leaves that look similar to those of true yucca plants. It is easily grown in well-drained sand, loam, caliche, and limestone soils in full sun, and superior soil drainage is essential to growing this plant.
- Blue mist spirea (Caryopteris x clandonensis) – Blue mist spirea is a low, mounding, deciduous shrub with a medium to fine texture, and belongs to the Lamiaceae (mint) family. It is a hybrid cross between C. incana and C. mongholica, and is also known as Bluebeard, Blue Mist Shrub or Blue Spirea. The common name “blue mist” refers to the flowers, which have a fluffy cloud-like appearance and bloom in late summer. The shrub has an average size of 2 to 3 feet tall and wide and is prized for its aromatic foliage and late summer flowers.
For a list of evergreen shrubs for Texas, check out this article from Ryno Lawn Care.
When choosing flowering shrubs for your North Texas landscape, be sure to consider factors like water requirements, sun exposure, and mature size. With a little research and planning, you can create a beautiful and low-maintenance garden that will thrive in our North Texas climate.