Where is your driveway in all this? Or your neighbors driveways? How much width are you expecting, front to back of the bed holding the shrubs?

The driveway is on the other side of the house, and my neighbor's property is separated by a pine tree with a mass of plants and vines growing in a wild mess around and on the tree. Front to back thickness is not really a big concern. There is no "bed" there as of yet, just a "lawn" of mixed grasses and dandelions that I'm trying to tame.

please post a couple pix of the situation ... you have tried with words ..... but i cant wrap my mind around it all ...

ken

Here's an older picture. All that land between the house and that mess of vines to the right of the yellow sign is my property. I'm trying to plant a row of shrubs between those two points. I just had some of the trees in the background taken down, but the ones on the right are still there to block some sun in the morning. When the sun is going down in the afternoon my house will block some sun too.

Ilex glabra becomes too leggy to be a good hedge plant, in my opinion, though it is evergreen. I think a mixed shrub border would be more attractive in this site than a hedge consisting of a single plant. It takes more planning obviously but it would allow you to design for multiple seasons of interest.

If you want the simplicity of a single plant, Physocarpus opulifolius (ninebark) is native and comes in interesting cultivars. A row of shrubby dogwoods would also achieve the objective--you could go with red-twig dogwood for high drama or there are other less common native shrub dogwoods.

what do you mean by hedge??? .. you have plenty of space.. to plant into your property .. so you never have the shear them into hedge form ...

or are you thinking a more natural line of plants????

ken

I've noted here often that when peeps say hedge, they just as often really mean shrub border.

Skip, the egg masses of the viburnum leaf beetle-drat that things, we don't have them yet where I live-are easily observed in late winter on the ends of twigs. So if you really want V. dentatum-and it is a great plant-there's that factoid. Control can be easy if you don't mind doing just a bit of scouting.

I did mean shrub border, I wasn't familiar with the correct terminology. I like the nine bark and rhododendron suggestions. I had looked into the red twig dogwood but my wife thinks it will look messy, but I will try to find some pictures to convince here otherwise.

Mixed shrub is a nice idea too I hadn't really thought about.

Mixed shrub is better in several respects - no insect or plague is going to attack all of them at the same time; you have different times of blooming, so less down-time; different shades of green, so it's not boring. (I have a privet hedge, and it is dull dull dull).

Thanks again to all who responded. I ordered 3 Eastern Ninebark plants and 3 Bottlebrush buckeye plants. I'll put the Bottlebrush Buckeye in the area between that telephone pole and yellow sign because that plant can tolerate shade, and get really huge and spread. It would be better off not too close to the house. I'll start my shrub border starting from the pole toward the house with the Ninebarks.

Here are a couple pictures for perspective.

Its 47' from that bilco door to the wire holding the pole. I plan to plant the 3 Ninebarks 6' apart, then I have another 29' to fill in (47'-(3x6')). I might get 3 more Ninebark cultivars with a darker foliage and 2-3 other plants (Clethra alnifolia maybe) and call it a day.

I have a couple more questions now about spacing and planting this shrub border. Here are the selections I ordered, I got three of each, with the corresponding widths from their descriptions:

Physocarpus opulifolius: 6-10ft wide

Clethra alnifolia: 6-8ft wide

Viburnum nudum: 5-6ft wide

I plan to space the ninebark 6ft apart, and the rest of them 5ft apart, with the nine bark on the right, then the summersweet in the middle, and the viburnum on the left. I could probably plant the viburnum a little closer, like 4-1/2ft' apart.

Should I plant them in a straight line (top) or staggered (bottom)? The staggered rows are 3ft apart as shown.

I also have another question, I noticed I'm not getting much sun in the morning in the location I have chosen, and all the plants I ordered are very small (bare root or 4" pots). Should I raise them in a sunnier spot in larger containers (3 gallon) for the season, and then plant them in the fall when they are bigger? Will they grow faster in the ground despite the shade?