SHRUBS

Shrubs are woody plants that have several stems and are usually less than three meters tall. When a plant is much branched and dense, it may be called a bush. There are some shrubs, such as lilacs and honeysuckles that under especially favorable environmental conditions, grow to size of small tree. Some specimens of shrubs may take a tree form. A shrub is far from tree. Some large shrubs are essentially small trees. Many shrubs are very small and woody only at the base and can be easily mistaken as herb, but they do not die back to ground level in winter. Several stems arises from the base of a shrub. Shrubs attain heights up to about 20 feet. They often from the largest part of modern gardens because their cultivation requires less labor than that of herbs and some flowering shrubs, and some flowering shrubs have extended blooming periods. The popular garden shrubs are lilac, privet, spirea, honrysuckle, forsythia, mock orange etc. The soil beneath the shrubs is several times more fertile than before. Shrub roots help this process by retrieving nutrients from the deep soil.