Just wanted to add that the evergreen viburnums are expected to grow to about 6 feet high and spread to 4-5 feet. The hydrangea should also go up to about 5 feet.

any tree cover there? west sun, brick wall, hydrangea you are going to need a ton of water to keep it looking good.

you house has a nicely centered window, nice brickwork, nice lines at that point. i see no reason to plan anything there over 3 feet except as an accent. i only like shrubs if you are trying to hide something.

i would love to see a nice massing of grasses mixed with some flowering perennials- you know that look.

Here is a link that might be useful:

Thanks eeldip and beejoy2, I'm very new to gardening (and garden design), so your suggestions are really appreciated.

For the lower part of the bed, I had planned on doing a mix of purple -blue and pink perennials (love the picture, eeldip) but now I have to rethink the shrubs and hydrangea. I like the idea of keeping everything short... I should go look at some plant lists.

If you have any more suggestions, those are always welcome. Perennials are easy, but shrubs are a challenge for me - are there any in particular that you like and could recommend for this space? Thanks again!!

small manzanita are nice foundation plants. if you look at the link below, plenty of ones that will stay 3 foot tall ish (you might have to prune every once in a while).

my warning here is that once you go manzanita you are committing to some degree of low water gardening, or at least clever planning. you could put them along your foundation, and keep the water hungry plants down hill.

Here is a link that might be useful: manzanita varieties

This is so frustrating!! I like the idea of planting in threes but I just don't have the space... in the last few hours I have looked at hundreds of plants, nothing is smaller than 3-4 feet wide. If I get three of these, it just leaves enough space to plant one, slightly taller plant on the side. No space to do another plant to anchor the another side. That would leave me with a strange design: one tall plant and three short ones next to it :(

I should have mentioned in the original post that the flower bed is only 15 feet wide at the top.

If a shrub grows 5 feet wide, you can plant it four feet from another identical shrub, so they grow together. Plus, there is no rule that says you have to plant them in a straight line. If you stagger them, you can plant them even closer. That way, the planting is deeper but not as wide. Also, keep in mind that the stated size of a shrub is in ideal conditions, at maturity. Here are a few compact viburnums:
V. carlesii 'Compactum'
V. x Carlesii 'Cayuga'
V. dentatum 'Cardinal Candy'
V. opulus 'Nanum'
If you are not married to the idea of using viburnums - which, as a species, are very sizeable shrubs - there are other shrubs that are suitable for foundation plantings:
Clethra alnifolia (summersweet)
Berberis (barberry) - numerous cultivars in green, gold and purple
Buxus - several species and cultivars
Ilex crenata - some cultivars, but mind that if you want berries, you need both at least one male plant for every four or five female plants, and the cultivars are either male or female and different cultivars may have different textures - 'Beehive' (male), 'Hoogendorn' (male), and 'Soft Touch' (female)
Pieris japonica - several cultivars, including 'Bisbee Dwarf', 'Bonsai', 'Pygmaea' (also listed as f. pygmaea), 'Nocturne' 'Little Heath', and 'Cavatine'
Abelia x grandiflora - several cultivars, including 'Compacta', 'Conti' (Confetti), 'Dwarf Purple', 'Little Richard', and 'Sunrise'
Escallonia - several cultivars, including 'Newport Dwarf', 'Pink Pixie', and 'Red Elf'
Osmanthus heterophyllus 'Kembu'
Also, there are literally thousands of junipers, arborvitaes, chamacyparis, and other evergreen coniferous shrubs.
And don't forget to consider ferns. There are several evergreen ferns (Polystichum munitum, P. acrostichoides, P. polyblepharum, Cyrtomium falacatum, Blechnum spicant, and Dryopteris erythrosora 'Brilliance', to name a few.

I hope this is helpful.

Tammy

Evergreen huckleberry could work there. It can be sheared to shape/height or left naturally. Doesn't mind getting wet.

I love evergreen huckleberry (Vaccinium ovatum)!!! But it grows so agonizingly slowly that you need to buy mature shrubs to get the width you want. Ideally, you should only remove 1/3 of foliage per year - and I wouldn't do that the first year, while it is becoming acclimated. While the species evergreen huckleberry gets 10 feet tall or so, there is a cultivar ('Native Star') that only gets about 6 feet tall - so less to prune off, if that's the way you want to go. 'Native Star' is a native selection chosen for excellent fruiting qualities and superior landscape appeal.

Tall Oregon grape (Mahonia aquifolium) is also very nice in full sun, but can get well over 6 feet tall and does not take as well to pruning as evergeen huckleberry - so look for M.a. 'Compacta', which gets about 3 feet tall and wide. Also, creeping mahonia (Mahonia repens) can get up to 2 feet tall, but usually gets only about 1 foot tall. Low Oregon grape (M. nervosa) does not do as well in full sun, but with plentiful water, can adapt. It gets about 2 feet tall in the shade, so probably about 1.5 feet tall in full sun.

i wouldn't get overly worked up about the even vs odd rule. the underlying concept is really formalism vs. naturalism. pairs tend to look more formal.

When you are planting in drifts the outside shape of the drift is what matters and not how many shrubs are inside the drift. Often an even number will be what works.

Since the front of your house is not uniform you should be planting informally balanced combinations of shrubs, with no identical pairs. An example is a small shrub plus a medium shrub at one corner balanced by a large shrub at the other corner.

I'd put the Hydrangea in the back yard and stick to evergreens at that height and below. It's your entry and should look good all year round. The Hydrangea doesn't have the branching pattern to support it, design wise, through the winter.
Something like a Japanese Maple to act as a canopy over the drifts might be nice. As bboy says, the number of plants in a drift isn't important. You can't count the individual plants most of the time anyway.
Have you thought about making the bed larger?
Mike