Color Your Summer with Proven Winner Shrubs

New introductions like 'My Monet' Weigelia bring exciting color and elegant foliage to the garden

Adding color to your garden has never been easier! Proven Winners ColorChoice flowering shrubs are a unique selection of new shrubs with exciting color and unsurpassed performance. Each variety is incredibly colorful and easy growing.

The international network of plant breeders at Proven Winners have set out to change the way people view shrubs. The result is a wide array of new plant introductions with the color and excitement once reserved for only perennials and annuals. See the results yourself by planting your own and discover the future of flowering shrubs!

Proven Winners has searched the globe to bring you the best new flowering shrubs. These new introductions come from the best plant breeders in England, Korea, Germany, France, Japan, The Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, the United States and Canada.

If you've only thought of annuals when you think of Proven Winners, you're in for an exciting surprise! Here are a few varieties to keep an eye out for on your next visit:

	Hydrangea 'Limelight' Elegant panicles of lime-green flowers emerge in late July, age to creamy-green, then take on a pink-burgundy hue in autumn. 'Limelight' also features deep green foliage and a sturdy, upright, and mounded habit.
	Physocarpus 'Summer Wine' Noted for its deeply cut, wine-red foliage and its dense, free-branching, mounded growth habit, 'Summer Wine' will also produce small pinkish-white, five-petaled flowers in late spring. 2 & 3 gallon - 15% OFF
	Sambucus 'Black Lace' The black-purple foliage of 'Black Lace' provides interest all season, but looks especially rich when the soft pink blossoms appear in early summer. Masses of blooms will cover this plant and give off a slight lemon fragrance.

Good Bones for the Garden

Meredith Kennedy
Plan Before You
Plant Designer

When June is here and our gardens are full of color, it's hard to remember the cold, dreary days of winter.

But let's face it, we live in Maine and more than half our year is winter. So how do we maintain interest in the garden all year? Simple - create a landscape with good bones.

The bones are the structure of the garden, the elements that remain after the flowers are spent and the leaves are gone – paths, walks, trees, shrubs, benches, rocks, patios, ponds and sculpture.

The Importance of Structure

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Most of us become preoccupied with favorite plants or the ones we fell in love with at the garden center. We hope that all the wonderful plants we bring home, placed together, will make a beautiful whole. Unfortunately, what we often end up with is disorganized and lacks unity.

By adding structure a garden becomes solid and grounded, in all seasons, and creates a backdrop for those interesting plants. In fact, the most ordinary plants arranged within a well structured landscape can make a striking garden.

Structural Elements and their Uses

When coordinating the bones of your garden, take these elements into consideration:

• Paths connect different parts of the garden and direct traffic
• Walls, fences and trellis' create a sense of enclosure and security
• Boulders and rocks add visual focal points and can anchor plants
• Evergreen trees are perfect for framing a view, while deciduous trees grouped together can create a canopy of green
• Flower beds direct the viewer's eye and add seasonal color and interest
• Water features create sanctuary, sooth street noise and create a focal point

For ideas on how to add structure to your garden, please contact us. We now offer Plan Before You Plant – landscape design assistance for the homeowner.