Flowering Shrubs

Fill your beds and borders with color from late winter through fall with flowering shrubs from TN Nursery, a family-owned Tennessee grower since 1959. Shop hydrangeas, lilacs, viburnums, weigela, forsythia and spirea, plus native favorites like buttonbush, Carolina allspice and witch hazel. Every shrub ships fresh from our fields, with prices starting at $14.99.

Buy Flowering Shrubs Online, Direct From the Grower

Flowering shrubs are the workhorses of a good landscape. They’re bigger and longer-lived than perennials, easier to fit than trees, and they come back bigger and fuller every year. Plant a mix that blooms in different seasons, and your yard always has something in flower.

When you buy flowering shrubs online from TN Nursery, you’re buying from the farm that grew them. We’ve raised plants in McMinnville, Tennessee for three generations. Our shrubs are dug fresh, inspected, and shipped during the planting season, so they arrive ready to root in and grow.

Types of Flowering Shrubs in This Collection

Hydrangeas: The Blue Hydrangea produces big mophead blooms in summer. Their color depends on your soil: acidic soil turns them blue, and alkaline soil turns them pink. The native Smooth Hydrangea bears large white flower heads, handles shade and cold winters, and blooms on new growth, so it flowers reliably every year.

Viburnums:

• The Snowball Viburnum is an old-fashioned favorite, covered in huge white snowball clusters in spring.
• The native Arrowwood Viburnum has flat white flower clusters followed by blue berries for birds.
• The native Black Haw Viburnum pairs white spring flowers with dark fruit and red fall color.

Spring classics: The Lilac Shrub is loved for its intensely fragrant purple blooms. Forsythia lights up early spring with bright yellow flowers before its leaves appear. The Jane Magnolia is a compact, shrubby magnolia with pink-purple tulip-shaped blooms. It flowers later than most magnolias, so late frosts are less likely to damage its blooms.

Weigela and spirea: Red Weigela and Pink Weigela cover themselves in trumpet-shaped flowers in late spring that hummingbirds love. The Spirea Shrub and Japanese Spiraea bloom in pink clusters through summer and stay compact and tidy.

Summer heat lovers:

• Crepe Myrtle blooms for months through the hottest part of summer.
• The native Rose Mallow opens dinner-plate-sized hibiscus flowers in midsummer. It dies back to the ground in winter and regrows each spring.
• The Red Hibiscus Shrub adds big, bold red blooms.

Native shrubs for wildlife:

• Buttonbush bears round white pincushion flowers in summer that are a magnet for butterflies and bees.
• Carolina Allspice has unusual maroon flowers with a sweet, fruity fragrance.
• Witch Hazel blooms with spidery yellow flowers in the cold months, when almost nothing else is flowering.

Winter color: Winterberry Holly is a native holly that loses its leaves in fall, leaving its branches covered in bright red berries all winter.

Want a ready-made mix? Our 6 Flowering Shrubs package gives you a variety of 3–4 foot shrubs in one order.

Flowering Shrub Bloom Calendar

Plant shrubs from each season and you’ll have flowers almost year-round:

• Late winter to early spring: Witch Hazel, Forsythia
• Spring: Lilac, Snowball Viburnum, Jane Magnolia, Carolina Allspice, Black Haw Viburnum
• Late spring: Weigela (red and pink), Arrowwood Viburnum
• Summer: Blue and Smooth Hydrangea, Spirea, Crepe Myrtle, Rose Mallow, Red Hibiscus, Buttonbush
• Fall and winter: Winterberry Holly berries

Flowering Shrubs for Full Sun

These shrubs bloom best with at least 6 hours of direct sun a day:

• Crepe Myrtle
• Lilac
• Forsythia
• Spirea and Japanese Spiraea
• Red and Pink Weigela
• Rose Mallow
• Red Hibiscus
• Jane Magnolia

Flowering Shrubs for Shade

These shrubs still bloom with only 3–4 hours of sun, or with dappled light under trees:

• Smooth Hydrangea: One of the best shade bloomers.
• Blue Hydrangea: Prefers morning sun and afternoon shade.
• Carolina Allspice
• Witch Hazel
• Arrowwood Viburnum
• Black Haw Viburnum

Low Maintenance Flowering Shrubs

If you want blooms without much work, start with natives and tough classics. Smooth Hydrangea, Arrowwood Viburnum, Buttonbush, Witch Hazel, Forsythia and Spirea all need little more than watering while they get established. Native shrubs are adapted to local conditions and usually need no fertilizer or spraying.

Flowering Shrubs for Wet Soil

Have a soggy spot, a rain garden, or a pond edge? These shrubs handle wet ground:

• Buttonbush
• Rose Mallow
• Winterberry Holly
• Arrowwood Viburnum
• Smooth Hazel Alder

Planting and Pruning Flowering Shrubs

• When to plant: Plant in fall or early spring, while the shrubs are dormant.
• Planting: Dig a hole twice as wide as the roots, and plant at the same depth the shrub grew. See our full planting instructions .
• Water: Water deeply once a week through the first growing season, more often in heat or drought.
• Mulch: Spread 2–3 inches of mulch around the base, keeping it away from the stems.
• Prune at the right time: This matters more than anything else for getting blooms.
  • Spring bloomers (lilac, forsythia, weigela, viburnum, Blue Hydrangea) set next year’s flower buds in summer. Prune them right after they bloom.
  • Summer bloomers that flower on new growth (Smooth Hydrangea, spirea, crepe myrtle) can be pruned in late winter.
• Winterberry needs a partner: Only female winterberry plants produce berries, and they need a male winterberry nearby to pollinate them. Plant at least one male for every several females.

How We Ship Flowering Shrubs

Most of our flowering shrubs ship as dormant, bare root plants, dug fresh from our fields. The roots are packed in moist material so they stay hydrated in transit. Bare root shrubs cost less to ship and establish quickly, because the roots grow straight into your native soil. Learn more on our About Bare Root Plants page.

Flowering Shrub FAQs

What are the most popular flowering shrubs?
Hydrangeas, lilacs, forsythia, spirea, weigela and viburnums are among the most popular flowering shrubs in American yards. In warmer regions, crepe myrtles are a summer favorite.

What are the easiest flowering shrubs to grow?
Smooth Hydrangea, spirea, forsythia, Arrowwood Viburnum and Buttonbush are among the easiest. They’re tough, adaptable, and bloom reliably with little care.

What flowering shrub blooms all summer?
Crepe myrtle has one of the longest bloom seasons, often flowering for months. Smooth Hydrangea’s blooms last for weeks and slowly fade from white to green. Spirea will often rebloom if you trim off its spent flowers.

What are some good flowering shrubs for a small yard?
Spirea, Japanese Spiraea and weigela stay compact and work well in foundation beds and borders. Jane Magnolia is a good choice if you want a small flowering focal point.

When is the best time to plant flowering shrubs?
Plant while shrubs are dormant, from late fall through early spring. Our flowering shrubs ship in mid-to-late November, during the fall planting window.

How do I make my hydrangeas blue?
Bigleaf hydrangeas like our Blue Hydrangea turn blue in acidic soil and pink in alkaline soil. To keep them blue, add a soil acidifier such as garden sulfur. Smooth Hydrangeas stay white no matter what your soil is like.

Why didn’t my flowering shrub bloom?
The most common reason is pruning at the wrong time. Cutting spring bloomers like lilac or forsythia in fall or winter removes next year’s flower buds. Too much shade or too much nitrogen fertilizer can also reduce blooming.

Where is the best place to buy flowering shrubs?
Buy from a grower that ships fresh plants at the right planting time and stands behind them. TN Nursery has grown plants in Tennessee since 1959, ships nationwide direct from the farm, and backs every order with our warranty . Need help choosing? Get free expert advice or call 931-692-4252.