10 Showy Pink Flowering Shrubs: Choosing A Bright Pink Flowering Bush

(Image credit: igaguri_1)

While white-flowering shrubs are elegant and serene, pink blooming shrubs are dressed up and ready to party. You can find a plant with pastel pink blossoms, but why would you when a bright pink flowering bush could go in the same spot? If you’re tickled pink by the very idea, here are 10 great choices.

1. Bougainvillea

This tough, drought-resistant plant will light up your backyard with brilliant, dramatically pink flowers. You can find bougainvillea plants that are shrubs and others that are vines, so pick whichever works for your yard. Native to Mexico and other points south, bougainvillea thrives in USDA hardiness zones 9 through 11. It can be grown both as a vine and as a shrub. 

2. Daphne

Do you want an evergreen shrub with pink flowers that will fill your yard with fragrance? Daphne might be the shrub for you if you live in USDA hardiness zones 4-9. Daphne shrubs are compact and great for smaller gardens, but their large, fragrant flowers are breathtaking. 

3. Azalea

Azaleas are incredibly popular shrubs for their easy-care ways as well as their lovely blossoms. These big pink flower bushes grow best in mild to warm climates like USDA hardiness zones 7 to 9. For bright pink flowers, try the cultivar “Gumpo Pink.”

4. Hydrangea

If you pick a bigleaf hydrangea, you’ll need to plant it in alkaline soil to get a shrub with pink flowers. However, there are cultivars that will give you endless waves of pink flowers no matter what the acidity of the soil. For a bush with pink flowers in spring, we recommend “Pink Elf,” a dwarf plant with bright rose mophead flowers that will be a showy accent in zones 5 through 9.

5. Butterfly Bush

It’s not hard to find a butterfly bush with pink blossoms, and the butterflies like them just as well as the blue-blossom shrubs. We love the “Pugster Pink” cultivar, a dwarf bush with enormous, candy pink flowers. They thrive in USDA zones 5 through 9. 

6. Hibiscus

Perennial hibiscus shrubs offer big, disc-shaped, hollyhock-like flowers that can measure up to 12 inches (30.48 cm.) across. They flower in late summer and early fall. These vibrant bushes can grow up to 5-feet (1.5 m.) tall with a 4-foot (1.2 m.) spread, and pink-blooming shrubs are available. 

7. Pink Weigela

Weigela is a dense bush with pink flowers in spring that sometimes reappear in summer. But go for the new Sonic Bloom cultivars that bloom repeatedly from spring to fall in astonishing shades, including pink. 

8. Flowering Quince

Quince is known as a low-care bush with pink flowers in spring. There are many quince cultivars that offer pink flowers but our favorite is called “Double Take Pink Storm.” It’s a medium-sized, multi-stemmed shrub topping out at some 4 feet (1.2 m.) in USDA zones 5 through 9. The large, salmon colored, double flowers appear in early spring before the leaves appear. 

9. Camellia

Camellia is one of the most beautiful, pink-flowered shrubs for a garden. These bushes produce extraordinarily beautiful peony-style flowers that are perfectly formed, with luminous overlapping petals. The flowers last long into winter and sometimes even early spring.

10. Pink Oleander

Oleander is a fragrant flowering shrub for warm-weather areas. It thrives in USDA zones 10-11 and is very easy to grow. It is evergreen and fast growing yet is also drought resistant. The pink blossoms are clustered at the end of the branches. Each flower has five spreading petals.

Teo Spengler
Writer

Teo Spengler has been gardening for 30 years. She is a docent at the San Francisco Botanical Garden. Her passion is trees, 250 of which she has planted on her land in France.