The Ultimate Guide to Growing Juniper Shrubs
By Richard "Woodie" Buller, GGD co-founder with 35+ years in horticulture
Published On: Nov 2, 2026
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If you're looking for an evergreen shrub that can handle full sun, summer heat, dry soil, slopes, wind, and some of the toughest spots in the landscape, Juniper shrubs deserve a serious look.
They're among the most useful problem-solving evergreens we grow.
Some Junipers stay only a few inches tall and spread across the ground like an evergreen carpet. Others form compact blue mounds, arching green shrubs, or golden accents that provide year-round color without relying on flowers. Once established, many Juniper shrubs are remarkably drought-tolerant, require very little pruning, and perform beautifully in sunny places where fussier plants struggle.
That's one of the reasons I've always appreciated them.
A good Juniper doesn't ask you to redesign your entire landscape around it. Give it plenty of sunshine, good drainage, enough room to reach its natural size, and a little attention while the roots establish, and it usually gets on with the business of growing.
As I like to tell gardeners, "Junipers don't need perfect soil. They need the right soil." And for most of them, that means soil where excess water can drain away.
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Why Grow Juniper Shrubs?
Juniper shrubs offer gardeners something that can be difficult to find: an evergreen structure with minimal maintenance.
They don't depend on a short flowering season for their appeal. Instead, the foliage does the work throughout the year. Depending on the variety, that foliage may be rich green, blue-green, silver-blue, gray-green, or bright gold. Some Junipers even develop bronze or purple tones during winter, adding another subtle seasonal change when the rest of the landscape is quiet.
Their growth habits are just as varied. Creeping Junipers can cover slopes and reduce exposed soil. Mounding forms can anchor foundation beds and rock gardens. Broader shrubs can provide evergreen structure behind perennials or soften large areas of hardscape.
For gardeners looking for drought-tolerant evergreen shrubs, deer-resistant landscape plants, evergreen groundcovers, or low-maintenance shrubs for full sun, Junipers check a lot of boxes.
The Most Important Juniper Rule: Give Them Sun and Drainage
If you remember only one thing from this guide, make it this: Junipers want sunlight and well-drained soil.
Most Juniper shrubs develop their best color and densest growth in full sun. Put them in too much shade and the plants can become thinner, looser, and less attractive over time.
Drainage is even more important.
Junipers can tolerate surprisingly lean, rocky, sandy, and imperfect soils once established. What they generally don't appreciate is sitting in constantly wet soil. A Juniper planted in a low area that remains saturated after every rain may struggle no matter how carefully you care for it.
Before planting, watch the site after a heavy storm. If water remains around the planting area for long periods, either improve the drainage or choose a plant better suited to wet conditions.
Junipers can be tough plants, but tough doesn't mean they want wet feet.
Juniper Shrubs Are Ideal for Hot, Dry Parts of the Landscape
Every property seems to have one planting area that frustrates the gardener.
Maybe it's a sunny slope where mulch constantly washes downhill. Maybe it's the narrow strip beside the driveway that bakes every afternoon. Perhaps it's a rock garden where the soil dries faster than the surrounding soil.
Those are exactly the kinds of places where Junipers become valuable.
Once established, many Juniper shrubs handle heat and periods of drought extremely well. Their evergreen foliage also means those difficult areas don't disappear visually during winter.
Instead of spending years trying to make a moisture-loving shrub happy in a hot, dry location, use a plant that actually appreciates the conditions.
That's right, plant, right place in its simplest form.
Creeping Junipers Make Excellent Evergreen Groundcovers
Some of the best-known Juniper shrubs grow much wider than they grow tall.
These creeping Junipers are especially useful on slopes, banks, rock gardens, retaining walls, and broad sunny planting beds where you want permanent evergreen coverage.
Think of them almost as living mulch.
As the branches spread, they cover exposed soil, help reduce open areas where weeds can become established, soften stone and hardscape, and give the planting a finished appearance through winter.
Garden Goods Direct's Juniper shrub collection includes several excellent choices for this job, including Blue Rug Juniper, Blue Chip Juniper, Blue Pacific Juniper, Green Mound Juniper, Andorra Juniper, and Parson's Juniper.
Each gives you a slightly different combination of height, foliage color, and spreading habit.
Blue Rug Juniper: An Evergreen Carpet for Slopes and Walls
Blue Rug Juniper is probably one of the first plants I think about when someone tells me they need a very low evergreen groundcover.
It stays remarkably close to the ground but can spread several feet wide, creating a dense carpet of silver-blue foliage. That makes it excellent for sunny slopes, banks, rock gardens, and the tops of retaining walls where its branches can spill naturally over the edge.
I particularly like the Blue Rug around stone because the cool foliage color contrasts beautifully against rock, gravel, and dark mulch.
It may also develop purplish tones during colder weather, giving the plant some subtle winter personality.
If the goal is low evergreen coverage rather than height, Blue Rug is one of the most useful Junipers in the collection.
Blue Chip Juniper: Broad Blue-Green Groundcover
Blue Chip Juniper gives gardeners another low-growing blue Juniper for sunny landscapes.
It's especially useful when you want to spread evergreen coverage across banks, border fronts, or broad foundation beds. The foliage brings cool blue-green color that pairs beautifully with flowering perennials, ornamental grasses, and dark-green shrubs.
Like other creeping Junipers, give Blue Chip room to spread.
One of the easiest mistakes to make with groundcover shrubs is planting them according to how small they look in the nursery pot. Think about their eventual width instead.
The small plant you install today is designed to cover ground later.
Let it.
Blue Pacific Juniper: Soft Texture With Coastal Character
Blue Pacific Juniper has a softer, more relaxed appearance than some of the tightly carpeted creeping forms.
Its blue-green foliage and spreading habit work beautifully along sunny borders, on slopes, in coastal-inspired landscapes, and across large areas where a flowing evergreen texture is more appropriate than a formal hedge.
It's also an excellent example of why I don't think of all Junipers as stiff or prickly plants.
Some varieties have a surprisingly soft visual texture when used in broad masses.
Plant Blue Pacific with room to move and allow the branches to develop naturally.
Green Mound Juniper: Low Evergreen Structure for Rock Gardens
Green Mound Juniper stays low while developing into a broad mat of blue-green foliage.
It's particularly useful in rock gardens, Japanese-inspired landscapes, border fronts, slopes, and areas where you want evergreen structure without blocking the plants behind it.
One of the things I like most about Green Mound is its natural relationship with stone. Let it spill beside a boulder or over the edge of a wall, and it looks like it belongs there.
In colder weather, the foliage can also pick up subtle purplish tones.
This is not a plant I would shear into a tight shape.
Its natural spreading form is part of what makes it attractive.
Andorra Juniper: Evergreen Groundcover With Winter Color
Andorra Juniper brings another layer of seasonal interest to the groundcover group.
During the growing season, it provides dense evergreen foliage and broad spreading coverage. As temperatures cool, the foliage can take on bronze-to-purple tones, making the plant noticeably different in winter.
That's an underappreciated quality.
We sometimes assume evergreen means a plant must look exactly the same twelve months a year. I actually enjoy evergreens that respond to winter with slight changes in color.
Andorra Juniper is particularly useful along foundations, on slopes, in rock gardens, and anywhere you want a low-growing evergreen that doesn't become visually flat during the colder months.
Parson's Juniper: Tough Evergreen Coverage With a Little More Height
Parson's Juniper is another spreading evergreen, but it develops into a more substantial groundcover shrub than something as low as Blue Rug.
Its blue-green foliage creates a broad evergreen mound that works well on sunny slopes, along driveways, beside retaining walls, and across larger foundation beds.
I like Parson's Juniper when the space needs coverage, but it could use a little more visual mass.
It can help connect taller shrubs to the lower layer of the landscape without becoming a tall screen itself.
Give it full sun, good drainage, and plenty of width.
Blue Star Juniper: Compact Blue Color for Smaller Gardens
Not every Juniper needs to spread six feet across a slope.
Blue Star Juniper gives you a compact, naturally mounded evergreen with outstanding silver-blue foliage.
This is one of my favorite Junipers for smaller landscape beds because it provides abundant color without becoming overly large. Use it near entrances, along sunny foundations, in rock gardens, or as a specimen among lower perennials and groundcovers.
Blue Star is especially effective when paired with contrasting foliage. Put it near something chartreuse, burgundy, or dark green, and that blue foliage becomes even stronger.
This is what I mean when I talk about designing with foliage instead of relying entirely on flowers.
A Blue Star Juniper can provide color every month of the year.
Sea Green Juniper: Graceful Evergreen Structure
Sea Green Juniper brings more height and arching structure to the Juniper shrub collection.
Its rich mint-green foliage develops on spreading, fountain-like branches that create a softer form than a tightly clipped evergreen hedge.
I like Sea Green in larger foundation beds, mixed evergreen borders, informal hedges, and places where a substantial evergreen shrub can provide year-round structure behind flowering plants.
The key is giving it enough space to show its natural shape.
When a naturally arching shrub is constantly cut into a tight square, we lose much of what made the plant worth choosing in the first place.
Let Sea Green be Sea Green.
Grey Owl Juniper: Soft Silver-Gray Foliage for Evergreen Contrast
Grey Owl Juniper is one of those plants I use when a landscape has too much dark green.
Its soft gray-blue to silvery foliage provides a completely different color and texture from Boxwoods, Hollies, Arborvitae, and other traditional evergreen shrubs.
That makes it particularly useful in mixed borders.
Imagine Grey Owl against burgundy foliage, bright green ornamental grasses, or the red stems of Twig Dogwoods in winter. Suddenly, the foliage color becomes part of the entire design.
This is a broader-spreading shrub, so don't squeeze it into a narrow foundation bed.
Give it room and use that width to your advantage.
Gold Lace Juniper: Bright Golden Evergreen Color
If blue and silver aren't what the landscape needs, Gold Lace Juniper takes the color palette in the opposite direction.
Its golden-yellow foliage can brighten a sunny bed through every season.
I particularly like Gold Lace, where a landscape has become dominated by dark evergreen shrubs. One golden Juniper can completely change the bed's visual weight.
Use it as a sunny foundation accent, in a mixed evergreen border, on a slope, or repeated through a larger planting where the gold foliage can create rhythm.
Junipers don't need flowers to provide color.
Gold Lace proves that.
Gold Cone Juniper: Vertical Golden Accent
Gold Cone Juniper gives you a narrower, more upright form with bright golden foliage.
That's valuable because sometimes the landscape needs height rather than more horizontal spread.
Use Gold Cone as a vertical accent in a sunny bed, near an entrance, within a mixed conifer planting, or anywhere you need a narrow evergreen form with color.
Its upright habit can also help break up landscapes dominated by round and spreading shrubs.
Shape matters just as much as foliage color.
A successful planting usually combines upright, mounding, and spreading forms rather than repeating the same silhouette everywhere.
Choosing the Right Juniper Shrub
The easiest way to choose a Juniper is to start with the job rather than the cultivar name.
If you need an extremely low evergreen groundcover, look toward Blue Rug Juniper.
For spreading blue-green coverage, consider Blue Chip, Blue Pacific, Green Mound, Andorra, or Parson's Juniper, depending on the height and texture you want.
If you need a compact specimen with dramatic blue foliage, Blue Star Juniper is a strong choice.
For a larger mounding or arching evergreen shrub, consider Sea Green or Grey Owl Juniper.
If your landscape needs bright foliage, Gold Lace Juniper provides broad golden color, while Gold Cone Juniper adds a more vertical golden accent.
That's what makes this group so useful.
You're not choosing between eleven versions of the same shrub.
You're choosing between eleven different landscape tools.
Plant Junipers With Mature Size in Mind
One of the biggest mistakes with Juniper shrubs is underestimating their mature spread.
A one-gallon creeping Juniper may look tiny when it arrives, but several years later, that same plant may cover a surprisingly broad section of the bed.
That's exactly what you bought it to do.
Give spreading Junipers enough room from the beginning. If you're creating a mass groundcover, you can plant them close enough that they'll eventually knit together, but don't crowd them so tightly that branches immediately overlap.
Good spacing improves airflow, allows each plant to develop its natural shape, and reduces how much pruning you'll need later.
Design for the mature plant.
Not the nursery pot.
How to Plant Juniper Shrubs
Plant Juniper shrubs in full sun whenever possible and choose a location with good drainage.
Dig a hole wider than the root ball but no deeper than necessary. Set the plant so the top of the root ball is level with or slightly above the surrounding soil.
Backfill around the roots, water thoroughly, and apply a light layer of mulch around the planting area.
Don't bury the stems beneath mulch.
On slopes, I like creating enough of a small level planting shelf that water can soak into the root ball instead of immediately running downhill.
The goal during that first season is to help the roots establish without keeping them constantly wet.
How to Water Newly Planted Juniper Shrubs
New Juniper shrubs need regular moisture while they're establishing, even though mature Junipers are famous for drought tolerance.
That's an important distinction.
Drought tolerant does not mean drought tolerant the day you plant it.
During the first growing season, check the original root ball and water thoroughly when it begins to dry. Don't judge moisture only by the surrounding soil or mulch.
As roots expand into the landscape, watering requirements decrease.
Once established, many Juniper shrubs require supplemental water mainly during extended periods of drought.
That's when Junipers really begin earning their reputation as low-maintenance plants.
Don't Overwater Junipers
If there's one care mistake I'd rather you avoid, it's keeping Juniper roots constantly wet.
A gardener sees an evergreen shrub and assumes more water must equal greener foliage.
Not necessarily.
Junipers are generally much happier with soil that drains between waterings than with soil that remains saturated.
If the plant begins looking yellow, dull, or unhealthy, don't automatically reach for the hose. Check the soil.
Sometimes the problem isn't that the Juniper needs more water.
It's that the roots need more air.
Do Juniper Shrubs Need Fertilizer?
Junipers generally aren't heavy feeders.
If they're growing in reasonable soil and producing healthy foliage, I don't believe in fertilizing just because the calendar says it's spring.
New plants benefit far more from correct planting, good drainage, and appropriate moisture than from being pushed with excessive fertilizer.
If growth is weak or the site has very poor soil, a modest application of an appropriate slow-release fertilizer in spring may be useful.
But don't confuse fertilizer with a cure for poor drainage, shade, or improper watering.
As I like to say, "Fertilizer can feed a plant. It can't fix the wrong planting site."
How and When to Prune Juniper Shrubs
One of the nice things about Junipers is that most need very little pruning when you've chosen the right variety for the space.
If pruning is necessary, I prefer light, selective cuts to control size, clean up damaged growth, or keep branches from extending beyond the desired area.
Be cautious about cutting deeply into old bare wood.
Many Junipers don't reliably produce new foliage from older leafless stems, which means severe pruning can leave permanent brown or bare areas.
That's another reason mature size matters so much.
If you need a plant that's two feet wide, don't plant one designed to become six feet wide and expect pruning to solve the problem forever.
Choose the right Juniper from the beginning and let its natural habit do most of the work.
Why Is My Juniper Turning Brown?
Brown foliage doesn't automatically mean your Juniper is dying.
Interior foliage may brown naturally as older growth becomes shaded and is shed. Winter weather can also cause temporary bronzing, particularly on some spreading forms such as Andorra or Green Mound.
When entire branch tips begin browning, however, I look more closely at cultural conditions.
Is the soil staying too wet? Has there been an extended drought? Was the plant recently installed? Is road salt involved? Has heavy pruning exposed old interior wood?
Start with the growing conditions before assuming disease.
A surprising number of Juniper problems begin with water, drainage, or site selection.
Juniper Shrubs and Winter Color
One of the things I like about Junipers is that winter doesn't necessarily mean the plant stops changing.
Blue Rug can develop purplish tones. Green Mound may pick up subtle purple coloration. Andorra Juniper can become distinctly bronze-purple.
Those shifts are often part of normal winter coloration rather than a sign that the plant is dying.
Then spring arrives and the growing-season color returns.
This gives Junipers a little more seasonal personality than people sometimes give them credit for.
Evergreen doesn't have to mean visually identical all year.
Are Juniper Shrubs Deer Resistant?
Junipers are generally considered deer resistant, which makes them extremely useful in landscapes where browsing pressure is common.
The aromatic foliage and texture are usually less appealing to deer than many broadleaf shrubs.
That said, I never call any landscape plant completely deer-proof.
A hungry deer can surprise you.
But if I'm designing a sunny landscape where deer pressure is a regular concern, Junipers are certainly one of the evergreen groups I'd consider.
Junipers Are Excellent Plants for Slopes and Erosion Control
Slopes can be difficult to landscape because water runs off quickly, mulch moves downhill, mowing can be dangerous, and exposed soil is vulnerable to erosion.
Spreading Junipers solve several of those problems at once.
Varieties such as Blue Rug, Blue Chip, Blue Pacific, Green Mound, Andorra, and Parson's Juniper spread horizontally across the soil and create permanent evergreen coverage.
Over time, their branches and root systems help knit the planting together.
I especially like staggered plantings on slopes rather than perfectly straight rows.
As they grow together, the result feels much more natural.
Designing With Juniper Shrubs
Junipers become much more interesting when they're combined with plants that have completely different textures.
Pair low blue Junipers with ornamental grasses.
Use golden Junipers against dark-green Hollies or Boxwoods.
Let Blue Rug spill over stone while flowering perennials rise behind it.
Combine Grey Owl with red Twig Dogwoods for winter contrast.
Use Blue Star as a compact evergreen anchor among Echinacea, Salvia, or Sedum.
The key is contrast.
Junipers are fine-textured foliage plants. They often look best beside broader leaves, grasses, stone, or flowers that emphasize that texture.
They don't need to dominate the landscape.
They can make everything around them look better.
A Simple Juniper Landscape Palette
You don't need every Juniper in the collection to build a successful landscape.
If I were designing a large sunny bed, I might start with Sea Green Juniper or Grey Owl Juniper to provide more substantial evergreen structure. I'd use Blue Star Juniper as a smaller specimen and bring Blue Rug, Green Mound, or Blue Pacific Juniper toward the front to cover exposed ground.
If the bed needed more brightness, I'd add Gold Lace Juniper. If it needed an upright accent, Gold Cone Juniper could provide height without requiring a huge footprint.
On a slope, I'd lean heavily toward spreading forms such as Blue Rug, Blue Chip, Andorra, or Parson's Juniper.
That's enough variety to create an interesting landscape without turning it into a Juniper collection.
Repeat the plants that work.
Repetition creates rhythm.
Shop the Juniper Shrubs Collection
Woodie's Take
Junipers sometimes get overlooked because they don't give us giant flowers or flashy spring blooms.
I think that's exactly why they're so useful.
They're working when other plants aren't.
They're covering the slope in January.
They're staying blue when the perennials disappear.
They're holding the front of the foundation bed together while the Hydrangeas are dormant.
They're growing in the hot, sunny spot where another shrub struggled for three years.
That's the value of a good evergreen.
If I were choosing Junipers for my own landscape, I'd start with the problem I was trying to solve. For a slope or broad groundcover, I'd look toward Blue Rug, Blue Chip, Blue Pacific, Green Mound, Andorra, or Parson's Juniper. If I wanted a compact blue specimen, I'd choose Blue Star. For more substantial evergreen structure, I'd consider Sea Green or Grey Owl. If the landscape needed a shot of year-round gold, I'd reach for Gold Lace or Gold Cone.
Then I'd give them what Junipers really want: sunshine, drainage, enough room to grow, and appropriate water while they're getting established.
After that, I wouldn't fuss over them.
As I like to say, "The best low-maintenance plant isn't the one that never needs care. It's the one you put in a place where it naturally wants to grow."
That's Juniper in a nutshell.
Put the right Juniper in the right sunny, well-drained place, and it can quietly become one of the hardest-working plants in your landscape.