Panicle hydrangea, glossy abelia, bush cinquefoil and buttonbush hold flowers right through the hot months. Crapemyrtle and summersweet come close behind. Those six are the summer blooming bushes worth your bed space, and two of them run June until frost, which beats every spring shrub in the yard. All six share one habit, and that habit sets the day you prune.
The bed by my front walk ran white from June to September last year, and the only new thing in it was the panicle hydrangea I planted the spring before. I checked the plant most mornings on the way to the car, mostly out of habit. The heads opened cream, aged to a dusty pink, and stayed on the stems while the daylilies behind them finished and went to seed. That bed had never held color into September.
Shrubs that bloom all summer flower on new wood, the growth your plant pushes this season. Penn State Extension puts butterfly bush, beautyberry, summersweet and buttonbush on that same new wood list. Smooth hydrangea, panicle hydrangea and chaste-tree sit on the list too. Cut any of them in late winter or very early spring and the plant still has months to build the stems that carry the flowers. The bloom dates below come from field records, plant by plant, and not from the wood type itself.
Bush cinquefoil and glossy abelia both start in June and keep going until frost, the longest run here. Crapemyrtle flowers through most of summer. Buttonbush holds bloom throughout the summer, and summersweet waits for mid to late summer, so an early starter and a late one together cover the whole stretch of hot weather.
Stack the windows of three summer blooming bushes and your bed never goes quiet. Cinquefoil and abelia carry the front edge from June. The hydrangea takes the middle of the season, and summersweet arrives late enough to hand the bed over to fall. Overlap does the work here, so plan the dates before you plan the flower colors.
Panicle hydrangea bloom time runs from June into September, and one shrub covers most of that stretch on its own. Bees work the heads hard. Snapshot counts of flowering woody plants averaged 31.4 bees on panicle hydrangea, which put the plant in the top five sampled. August is the thin month in most yards, and that is the month this one keeps feeding.
Buttonbush is your pick for a wet, shady corner. The shrub runs 6 to 12 feet (1.8 to 3.7 m) tall and wants light shade to shade with soil that stays damp, which is the one spot where most flowering plants sulk. Summersweet comes in later on a plant of about 6 feet (1.8 m), with flower spikes 3 to 6 inches (8 to 15 cm) long. Give both room at the back.
Cut every shrub on this list in late winter or very early spring, before new foliage develops. Prune in June and you remove the growth that would have carried this year's flowers.
Prune on that schedule and you keep every flower your plant meant to make. Most flowering shrubs hand you about two weeks of bloom, which is the whole reason this group is worth the space. Room for only one? Plant the panicle hydrangea and give it that late winter cut. Put in two when the bed is long, one at each end. The run between them stays busy from June on.
Read the full article: 10 Flowering Bushes and How to Pick One
