Forgive me if this isn't the correct place to ask this.

As you may know (if you've looked at my location above), I live in Utah which is almost entirely desert. Because of the harsh climate, we have relatively few tree species but a boatload of shrubs and subshrubs (the reason for this thread). As a result, there is a very large number of plants native to Utah and elsewhere around the world (especially in similar climates) that don't fit the description of either a shrub or an herbaceous plant because they are somewhere in between. And because they are woody plants, they don't always respond well to being treated as herbaceous plants so a new category could keep people from inadvertently killing or severely damaging their plants.

Sorry for my long rant but I would really appreciate it if "subshrub" could be added as an option for plant habit.
Thank You

Thanks for the question, Angelo.

@dave, @zuzu - thoughts? I have located this page on plant habits:
https://plants.usda.gov/growth...

Seems like we need a category for "subshrub"?

Just as an example, I have listed some commonly used plants that are subshrubs.

Iberis sempervirens
Lavandula angustifolia
Phlox subulata
Delosperma cooperi
Thymus spp.
Berberis repens
Perovksia atriplicifolia
Catharanthus roseus

Do we really need this category? Is there any difference other than height? Where would we draw the line between a subshrub and a short shrub? The USDA definitions of shrub and subshrub seem to differ only in height, so does this mean that some fuchsias are subshrubs and some are shrubs, but the difference will depend on measurements with a yardstick? It seems to me that "shrub" fits both categories well. It's just that some shrubs are shorter than others, but we already list the plant height in the database, so do we really have to change thousands and thousands of database entries to accommodate this new subcategory?

Zuzu, I was wondering after my previous post whether we could just change the label from "shrub" to "shrub/subshrub", much like "herb/forb".

Angelo, is there a particular characteristic of these subshrubs other than the height that significantly affects their care?

From my experience, subshrubs commonly have woody tissue near the base of the plant. One local example is Gutierrezia sarothrae which is herbaceous about half its height. In the winter, the herbaceous tissue mostly dies back and what is left becomes woody. In the spring the cycle starts over again.
In my "Woody Plants of Utah" book, a subshrub is defined as "a perennial plant, woody only at the base or slightly above." Many plants can be both shrubs and subshrubs depending on their conditions but a lot of them never cross into the shrub threshhold.
As someone who has worked at a garden center, one problem I have seen is that people try to divide their plants the same way they would an herbaceous perennial.

Too confusing to the average gardener IMHO. Maybe add new heading as Joshua suggested at most.

If the term really must apply to woody plants, Delosperma cooperi would be off the list. I see all sorts of potential for people using "subshrub" for other things which are not woody at all. And in the case of the Delosperma, plants which are creepers or form mats instead of an actual subshrub with a defined base and central stem or stems. In my mind (not an expert, like most of the users of the database) that would be a different habit, but I see lots of gray areas where people could disagree, with no particular productive benefit.

My preference would be to combine "subshrub" with "shrub" since the two are only really separated by size.

Yeah, I think having a "Shrub/Subshrub" option would be the best thing to do.

Calif_Sue said:Too confusing to the average gardener IMHO.

That would be me. I've seen the term 'subshrub' and and always thought 'Hmm. What could that be? A sub shrub. Hmm.'