Best Flowering Trees & Shrubs

Add reliable color to your yard with these top-rated plants.

view all thumbnails

Eastern Redbud

Southern Magnolia

Flowering Dogwood

Forsythia

Pee Gee Hydrangea

Rhododendron and Azalea

'Anthony Waterer' Spirea

Shrub Rose

Flowering Crabapple

Glossy Abelia

Related Links

Our Favorite Small Trees

Small trees can pack a big punch into your landsca...

The 13 Best Summer-Blooming Shrubs

Add beautiful blooms without a lot of maintenance ...

Top 20 Perennials for Your Garden

Here's a collection of easy-growing perennial flow...

How to Pick a Tree to Plant

Use our tips to select the best tree at your local...

Your Comment:

Eastern Redbud

Eastern redbud is a small, handsome, multistemmed understory tree that reaches 20 to 30 feet with a 20- to 30-foot rounded crown. Early spring flowers are breathtaking, opening from a reddish purple in bud to a rosy-pink. The heart-shaped leaves emerge after the flowers. Fall color is sometimes an attractive yellow.

Click here for our complete Tree & Shrub Guide

Southern Magnolia

This Southern tree is widely planted for its beautifully fragrant, creamy-to-white spring flowers; large, shiny, evergreen leaves with a fuzzy underside; and red fruit in fall. It is a large tree, reaching 60 to 80 feet tall and 30 to 50 feet wide. Smaller cultivars are available. Plant it away from walks or pools, where its litter can be unsightly.

Click here for our complete Tree & Shrub Guide

Flowering Dogwood

Flowering dogwood is a spreading tree with horizontal branches that give it winter interest. Size varies with climate; a typical size is 20 to 40 feet tall and wide. The distinctive leaves turn to reddish-purple in fall. The late-spring true flowers are insignificant, but are surrounded by four attractive white or pink bracts. The fruit is glossy red in fall.

Click here for our complete Tree & Shrub Guide

Forsythia

Forsythia is a sunny harbinger of spring. Border forsythia is an upright, arching deciduous shrub that offers its bright yellow flowers in early spring. Some branches arch, while others shoot upwards. Use in an informal hedge or as a specimen in a border.

Click here for our complete Tree & Shrub Guide

Pee Gee Hydrangea

This is one of the hardiest and latest-blooming hydrangeas. It bears large, cone-shaped white flowers in summer that gradually turn reddish brown and persist into winter. Although it can reach up to 15 feet tall -- and be pruned as a tree -- more often it is under 10 feet tall.

Click here for our complete Tree & Shrub Guide

Rhododendron and Azalea

Rhododendrons and azaleas belong to the genus Rhododendron, and share many characteristics. Both groups thrive in well-drained acid soil and light shade. One point of difference is the shape of their flowers. Azaleas have funnel shaped blossoms, while rhododendrons have trumpet-shaped flowers. And although there are literally hundreds of species and varieties in the Rhododendron family, the most popular are noted the brilliance and quantity of spring flower display.

Click here for our complete Tree & Shrub Guide

'Anthony Waterer' Spirea

'Anthony Waterer' spirea is probably the most widely grown cultivar of the most widely grown spirea. It is a reliable, compact, rounded shrub that requires almost no care. It matures to 2 to 4 feet tall and 3 to 6 feet wide. The carmine-pink flat-topped flower clusters are 4 to 6 inches wide and bloom in summer when little else does; they dry and persist into winter. New leaves are purplish, turning green, then pinkish in fall.

Click here for our complete Tree & Shrub Guide

Shrub Rose

Modern shrub roses, as distinct from classic shrub roses, are a family of rose hybrids first developed by David Austin in the 1970s. They are a cross of old garden roses with hybrid tea roses and other modern varieties. They combine the fragrance and form of old roses with the strength, hardiness, and long bloom season of modern hybrids.

Click here for our complete Tree & Shrub Guide

Flowering Crabapple

Japanese flowering crabapples are small to midsized trees ranging in habit from low mounds to upright, narrow, or weeping types. In spring, they are covered with fragrant white, pink, or red flowers, and in fall with small yellow, orange, or red apples. Many have attractive branching that's revealed in winter. Look for newer varieties that are disease resistant and that hold their fruit into the winter.

Click here for our complete Tree & Shrub Guide

Glossy Abelia

Abelia is a mounded shrub with arching red branches. Shiny, dark green leaves turn bronze in late fall. The leaves remain through the winter in warm regions, but fall off in colder areas in its range. The clusters of short, funnel-shaped pinkish flowers bloom from midsummer through autumn and are slightly fragrant. Abelia makes a good hedge, either clipped or unclipped.

Click here for our complete Tree & Shrub Guide

Best Flowering Trees & Shrubs

Top Brands

Top Searches