I have an abortivae wall that came with the house. Each year we trim is once after it's regular growth spurt - to keep the height at about 9-10 feet. So far we have lived here 10 years and have managed the height without too much extra work...A wall of hydrangeas would be beautiful...

I agree a mixed border would be much nicer, but that would require cutting new garden beds and intensive maintenance with pruning, edging, fall cleanup, spring cleanup, and constant planting especially 80 feet long. We already require 12 yards of mulch for all the other bed and gardens we have that we can't keep up with. There is about 100 linear feet of mixed beds in the front of the house already and I just can't add any more maintenance.

The other is that this section of lawn starts to slope up facing the southern sky. It is totally open to winter winds, but its the first area to have snow melt in the spring from the sun, and the first place grass dies from the baking sun in the summer if not regularly watered. So I need something that can really stand the abuse. The mixed bed concept works well though in that dead plants can be replaced and there won't be a noticeable hole or size difference.

My thought with arborvitaes was to plant with empty space inbetween, and be able to just run the lawn tractor around easily without having to mulch. In the arborvitae family, I just found the "techny" variety that looks promising.

I do appreciate the suggestions.

If you don't mulch around the arborvitae, you will run into them. Do you know how much damage you can do to an arborvitae if you hit it with a garden tractor? You do that to a forsythia and it just grows right back.

Also, arborvitae is a borderline swamp plant.

I'd get a mixture of decidous flowering shrubs that sucker. Lilacs, species roses, forsythia - that type of thing. Plan on 8 to 10 of the big shrubs. If you want later, they can be interplanted with smaller things.

Rosa rugosa (beach rose) would probably love that baking sun. They come in different colors, smell great, have showy hips in the fall, and require minimal maintenance. You could mix some in with the evergreens or deciduous shrubs.

Claore

If you plant rugosa roses, you probably want to give them a pretty wide border of mulch . . . My husband, who does the lawn maintenance, does not enjoy having to mow close to rugosas since they tend to grab him. ;v)

I definitely would avoid the arborvitae hedge. First it is so commonly done. Secondly the deer will eat them if hungry enough (Know this as the ones I had on my property were ravaged one year before we took them out). And thirdly I've seen arborvitae hedges around town that some years they suffer damage from ice or snow that cause the bushes to lop to one side or lose branches and become misshappen.

Looking for something that is totally no maintainence is not realistic. Everything in the landscape unless it is woods requires some up keep. I do understand that you don't want to have a high maintenance area but I think you'll have to invest some time in keeping it looking nice each year.

I like the suggestion of a mixed border of shrubs and small trees. May be some small decidious trees to give the lawn some shade (and flowers to add interest) and some conifers for winter interest and privacy. Depending on the budget it may require you phase in the plantings over a couple of years. Forsythia is a great suggestion of a tough shrub that flowers nicely.

One thing I forgot, is if you are near to Tower Hill Botanical Garden in Bolyston, Mass. it is a great place to visit to see trees and shrubs in the landscape. Everything is labeled so you can buy the plants for your garden. If you go in May you'll be able to see examples of flowering trees, shrubs etc. They also mix in conifers.

Here is a link that might be useful: Tower Hill Botanical Garden

My father took cuttings from Forsythia, weigelia, and bridal veil and planted a row of them, alternating ,along the back of his property, which is 2 lots long. They are all Spring flowering but in succession - Forsythia first, once that's done, the weigelia and bridal veil. It's very pretty and he rest of the year it functions as a delineation for the back of his property. He also has some arbors with honeysuckle that match the weigelia nicely.

If you want to plant all one thing, you might want to consider an informal hedge of bayberry - it suckers, it's native, it grows quickly, provides great habitat for birds, and is nearly evergreen. It might be too rowdy for you, depending on how formal your neighborhood is. It takes wind and hot sun in stride and, being so informal, won't look terrible if occasionally hit by the lawn tractor or nibbled by deer (if they like it, I don't have deer here so I don't know).

Not to belittle arborvitae, but a pizza place a few miles outside of Falmouth planted a long row of them along the property line a couple of years ago. Over the course of the summer I watched them decline, a little at a time - probably lack of water, but I don't really know. The following spring, they were all dead; totally brown. Not to lose the investment they'd made, the pizza guys spray painted the corpses red, white and blue. It was the funniest thing I'd ever seen in terms of garden ... ingenuity, I guess. It was humorous to me, but probably not to the guys who planted them. Anyway, I think of them whenever I see a line of arborvitae now.

I created a great border at my last home - a mix of fat albert spruce - mixed with perennial grasses (which grow fat and high and do not need to be cut down in winter - look beautiful),hydrangea - endless summer - better to have it in the shade of a larger tree - full sun will kill it, lots of tall growing perennials - coneflower purple, daisies white gerbera phlox - David,russian sage and also a few inkberry set of 3 in two areas to provide as a low lying hedge in front of perennials - also to create winter interest.

It was my best work - and then I got divorced and my ex and his wife to be have it all now :)

I wish I had such an area to plan at my house now - but no such luck. I am jealous.

Make it interetsting - it is worth the cost and outcome. Your house will be really beautiful rather than boring and will provide you with wonderful privacy (after about two years) as well.

Good Luck!

Thanks for all the suggestions. I've never to been to Tower Hill and have meant to go.

I should have said, minimal maintenance not zero, but what I'm really not looking for is another bed requiring lots of mulch, unless its just some small rings of mulch around bases/trunks.

I would love to see photos of those red white and blue arborvitae. Lol. I would not paint any of my plants unless there were a dead bonsai! :-0

Mixed shrub border consisting of viburnums, physocarpus, hydrangea paniculata, weigela, forsythia, callicarpa, althea, buddleia, cornus kousa etc will be relatively maintanance free, provide interest from spring to fall....and will be a very inexpensive to install since all above mentioned plants grow fairly fast, will tolerate yours conditions and are readily available at HD/Lowes.
Such border would need a watering only the first-second year and maybe ocassionaly during the super hot spells, but otherwise will be 100% self-sufficient starting from year #3.
BTW, such border wouldn't need a special soil preparation.
Just plant them in a staggered fashion in a grass and be done with it if you don't want to be bothered with weeding, mulching etc.

I can vouch for the combo of h. paniculata 'Limelight' and weigela 'Wine and Roses'. Look great together, and extremely low maintenance. With an evergreen in the mix they would be even better.

Thanks to all.

I think I will go with the mixed shrub border and I appreciate those species names. They are things I might not and have not otherwise found myself even after hours and days of research and its just what I needed to research and then buy. Some great looking plants. I knew the forum would come through.