Native to eastern North America, Physocarpus opulifolius (Common Ninebark) or one of its many cultivars is a beautiful, easy way to incorporate native shrubs into your landscaping. A versatile, deciduous flowering shrub, Ninebark is named for its exfoliating bark, which peels in strips to reveal several layers of reddish to light brown inner bark.

There are 8 species of ninebark and numerous cultivars. All feature arching branches and range in size from 3 to 8 feet tall and wide, depending on type. Physocarpus of any variety makes an excellent hedge plant and provides good erosion control.

Its leaves are of many different colors, commonly purple/burgundy and yellow, fit for every color scheme.…

Taught by our master designers Minal Akkad and Ruth Evan in a pre-competition workshop, FGC members stretched their creativity in our Spatial Thrust Design competition. Spatial Thrust is a creative design with a dominate volume of empty space defined by two strong, straight, parallel placements of identical plant or man-made material. The thrust may be vertical, diagonal or horizontal.  Many of us learned that our thrust elements were not strong enough and that this type of design calls for minimal use of flowers. …