Originally created to hide a house's foundation (and hence the name), the ring of flowers and shrubs planted around the base of your home should do more than merely hide the foundation. As a Master Gardener, I always recommend that foundation plants should draw the eye in, enhance the home's external features and increase curb appeal. Since they're often the largest, or perhaps the only, flower beds on the property, foundation plants should also offer visual appeal year-round and be easy to maintain. Use these plant ideas to create your own unique foundation planting.
Skip Old School Shape
Old school shape dictated that most homes had cookie-cutter foundation planting with two conical things on either side of the front steps, two tall things at each corner of the house and a lot of low-growing things in-between all lined up in a straight line.
New school style says go with an asymmetrical height and curved borders. Select plants that you like that are the right proportion for your home's foundation. Place the tallest plants in the back and work your way towards the flower bed front with shorter plants.
Year-Round Interest
To keep the beds interesting year-round, 50% of the foundation planting should be evergreen, 25% should be deciduous and 25% should be perennial flowers. Annuals can be tucked in here and there as desired and an easy way of doing that is to plant annuals in flower pots so they can be tucked and moved as needed among the permanent plantings.
Evergreen Shrub Ideas
Start with selecting the tallest plants first, which are typically evergreen shrubs, and build your plantings around them. If the evergreens will be planted under, select slow growing or dwarf varieties.
* Rhododendrons will provide you with showy spring flowers and glossy evergreen leaves.
* Japanese yew (Taxus cuspidata) Slow growing evergreen with dark needles and red berries in winter.
* Japanese pieris (Pieris japonica) is a dense evergreen with downward growing limbs and white bell-shaped spring flowers.
* Inkberry (Iilexglabra) is a slow-grow with dark green leaves and natural round shrub shape.
* Littleleaf boxwood (Buxus microphylla) is a naturally mounding, compact evergreen that can be pruned to any shape.
Deciduous Shrub Ideas
To the spring-blooming evergreens, add plants that will provide color all summer with some deciduous shrubs like these:
* Smooth hydrangea (H. Arborescens) Showy and reliable bloomers that vary in bloom times.
* Japanese spirea (Spirea japanica) form upright mounds and produce long-lasting pink or red blooms.
* Virginia sweetspire (Itea virginica) produces long spikes of fragrant white flowers in the summer and the dark green leaves put on colorful show in fall.
* Knockout rose (Rosa radrazz) has become most gardener's favorite shrub for its easy-care growing habits and profusion of summer blooms.
Flowering Perennials
To keep a profusion of color going all summer, plant some of these perennial flowers:
* Shasta daisy(Leucanthemum x superbum) produce 4 inch white blooms with a yellow center that attracts a variety of flying wildlife.
* Salvia (S. nemorosa) Produces varied colored blooms from early summer to fall.
* Tickweed (Coreopsis) produces easy-care daisy-like flowers and dark green foliage.
* Geraniums have long been foundation planting favorites because of their long-lasting blooms and long blooming season.
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