All way too big for that area!! Find a different location for them :-)

Just not familiar enough with many zone 6 shrubs to make specific suggestions but would focus on whatever is evergreen that might fit the requirements. Flowers are very brief in their appearance and duration so that should not be your primary focus but rather something that will look good all 12 months of the year, not just a week or two here and there. And not be just a collection of bare sticks for a good 4-6 months! You can always fill in with some early spring bulbs or annuals and small perennials for seasonal color.

Forsythia and weigela now come in dwarf kinds so if you happened to buy either of those a few of them might fit. Or maybe you can take the cultivars you have back and get one or more of the dwarf. Having been chosen for abnormal shortness these of course do not develop the grace of the full-sized versions with their arching older branches.

After becoming established the willows could be cut back hard at the end of winter each year and prevented thereby from building up as much size as otherwise. (Willows in general often look better in garden settings when treated in this manner anyway, as it prevents a buildup of less colorful - and rather often diseased - mature wood). But you still might eventually find them too big even with this treatment.

To get the best of both worlds use both evergreen and deciduous shrubs. Do this by putting the deciduous in the center and book-ending those with the evergreen. This way you can enjoy the attributes of the deciduous shrubs without the entire planting being nothing but sticks during the winter. Such an arrangement is a sort of facsimile of the house architecture to the left, where there is a much lighter weight fence-like section between two brick-faced posts.

Also since the front of your house doesn't have the same pattern all the way across the planting should not be geometrically symmetric either. Otherwise it won't coordinate with the house. So instead of matching pairs etc. achieve balance in a less symmetric way, such as a shrub at one end that by itself grows as big as one each of two other kinds placed together at the other end. And so on.

@Embothrium and @gardengal48 . Thank you both.

@Embothrium.... I like how you are thinking. Will you have suggestions on what kind of bushes, how many, may be hostas, etc.?

Junipers would work :-)

Seriously, you will want evergreens. Avoid azaleas or rhododendrons and their relatives unless you *know* you have acidic soil. I dislike the spotty look of mixed evergreens and deciduous during the winter. Some lowish, spreading blue junipers, a gold chamaecyparis at the corner, and some bright annuals in front would be about right.

Don't be afraid of making the bed deeper. It really it too shallow for most plants.

Lightweight small herbaceous plants don't look well matched when placed immediately adjacent to conifers and other solid looking evergreen woody plants. Spottiness in this context is a function of how plants are arranged and not what kinds they are. There is even a method involving the use of individual plants that stand out noticeably within an arrangement called "dot planting", with those kinds lending themselves to it being called "dot plants". And a term used to describe spaced out, often clipped shrubs with nothing of comparable height between them - as is often done - is "tombstone planting". If you instead group your shrubs as I have described, particularly on the one side where there is a solid wall behind the plantings should look quite adequate.

If you want to include herbaceous plants place those mostly in front of and among the deciduous shrubs. The range of visual weight of the types being discussed here is evergreen shrubby > deciduous shrubby > herbaceous with evergreen shrubs having the heaviest appearance and herbaceous plants the lightest. So if deciduous shrubs are placed between these two other kinds they serve to provide a transition.

"Lightweight small herbaceous plants don't look well matched when placed immediately adjacent to conifers and other solid looking evergreen woody plants."

This is a personal opinion, not a valid landscape design concern. In fact, the contrast in leaf shape and textures by including more herbaceous material or even grasses in combo with conifers and BLE's is considered a design plus.

Folks- we are completely novice at this, and have spent money only to realize our mistakes later. Will you have any recommendations on a few actual plants/ bushes.

Here is what my wife has researched- any thoughts would be appreciated. By the way, my house faces east, so this area gets 6-7 hours of direct sun.

Diabolo purple ninebark, Royal Burgundy Barberry, Little princess spirea, Emerald Gaitey Euonomys, False cypress, some type of boxwood, hostas, Deutzia Chardonnay

I have a pool going, if anyone is interested. Popcorn anyone?

Don't know what happened but I thought there were messages after my last posting, looks like they are all gone. I was hoping to get some advice on which bushes will be good for the front yard- my wife had researched these

Diabolo purple ninebark, Royal Burgundy Barberry, Little princess spirea, Emerald Gaitey Euonomys, False cypress, some type of boxwood, hostas, Deutzia Chardonnay

Must be something in the air?

i cant figure out where you are.. but im in one heck of a coffee buzz ... lol ... [ok.. IN z6 ..lol .. first darn sentence..lol]

DO NOT PLANT IN AUGUST ... period ... see link below on timing ... section one ...... and the rest of it ..

https://sites.google.com/site/tnarboretum/Home/planting-a-tree-or-shrub

your base problem here.. is the fact that your bed is 3 feet wide ... if you go stand at the curb... note that it probably looks all out of proportion to the front of the house... if you look around your subdivision [or anywhere as you drive around] .. note how some garden beds just look right.. and other dont ... target those that look right ....

so ... your first step ought to be redesigning the bed ... then .. you will have more options regarding plants ...

when you think about it.. what else can you do with that slope??? ... do you really need the extra grass ....???

so if you extended the bed to say 8 feet ... and planted out 4 feet from the cement ... all the way across the front of the house .... all of a sudden you have many more options ... [and you have room for that plants you bought????]

a much better search term.. is flowering shrubs ... rather than the word bushes ...

now.. once you plant shrubs out into the lawn ... then the little bed between the cement and the house.. can become a spot for annuals and perennial ... btw.. are you in a snow zone ... consider.. in your equation ... where snow need to be piled ... if any ...

make a long term plan ... for the whole front.. and your options expand greatly ...

ken

ps: place your potted plants in full shade .. until fall planting ... dont allow the black pots to heat in afternoon sun ...

btw .. to be clear ... i suggested coming up with a long term plan.. for a long term landscape .... but that does not mean you have to dig up the whole front of the house this fall ... it could be done over a couple of years ...

the point was ... to have a long term plan ... ken

We saw our local nursery yesterday--- for the first time. And here is some of the shrubs they recommended for our space.

green velvet boxwood

patriot hosta
peach drift rose
pee wee oak leaf hydrangea
pancile hydrangea
little henry sweetspire
golden mop cyprus

Except for the first 3, all will get much wider than the 3' bed will accommodate so you will have them flopping over onto the lawn. And they will also very likely get taller than your desired height.

If you were to increase the depth of the planting bed to at least 6' (generally considered a minimim depth), you can take your pick from those listed but I'd keep the taller growing plants in front of the porch with the lower growing ones bordering the walkway.

So here's the question I have. When it says "Full sun" does this mean the plant should be in Full sun for all day? Since the house faces east, the area typically get 6+ hours of sun. Does this mean that all plants with a label saying "Full sun" will not thrive in our case?

Not necessarily :-) Many "full sun" plants will tolerate or even thrive in less than the 8 or more hours generally considered to be 'full sun'. But much will depend on the specific plant in question.

Any suggestions for shady area with low sun exposure----

Something of Fall interest...?

Or something flowering....?

green velvet boxwood evergreen, stay small

patriot hosta will need to be kept well watered to look good in your amount of sun.

peach drift rose Roses have issues with Japanese beetles and may have disease problems, so if you want low care, choose something else IME

little henry sweetspire will stay around 2.5’, spring flowers and red fall color

golden mop cyprus will eventually get to 5’ in all directions and IMO pruning doesn’t look good with these, so unless you want to widen the space you will need to replace eventually.

pee wee oak leaf hydrangea 4’ in all directions, so too wide for a 3’ bed, spring flowers and great fall color

panicled hydrangea this is just the species name, and this particular species has cultivars that range from about 4’ in all directions (Bobo) to over 15’. What cultivar is the nursery recommending? You would need to plant the smallest kind and have a slightly wider bed. Some have fall color, and bloom lasts for months, starting in summer.

This area has sun from early morning until midday, and then bright light after that since it is only shaded by the house, so plants that will be happiest will be sun to part sun plants to, not shade plants.

You really want to make your bed at least 2 feet deeper front to back as both GG48 and I have recommended It will be easier to choose plants and maintain the garden and will look far better than the current 3’ strip which only has room for a few shrub selections due to the narrowness. The shrubs won’t need frequent pruning and they won’t be growing against the porch and over the lawn, and the garden will look better balanced against the size of the house.

wood is hitting the nail on the head. If you want shrubs, make the area bigger. That's your largest issue.

If it was me, I'd have a shrub or two anchoring the area, and add perennials to the bed. In order to find that year round interest for which you are yearning. If you feel like flowers are too labor intensive, go with some daylilies for starters. Easy-peasy and is visually interesting adding a different foliage than the shrubs and color with the flowers.

(I seriously thought about Diablo ninebark and I'm zone 6/7. That's my favorite of your bunch! However, I had free seeds for Cephalanthus occidentalis (button bush) and it's a native plant that butterflies love)

Thank you very much for all the fantastic advice. Really appreciate it.

My last question should have read differently- it should have said:

For our backyard, that has shady area- what shrubs/ bushes you recommend something will Fall interest and something flowering? Space is not a constraint here unlike in the front of the house.

Why don’t you start a new thread for the question about the back yard. Add photos and tell us about how you envision your back yard. Do you want space for kids to play or a seating area with a garden surrounding it or is this a privacy border, etc.?The front yard question was about cub appeal, but the back yard is personal space and so needs more detailed info before plants can be recommended depending on your goals and how you want to use the space. Will you want nice winter views from the house as well as summer flowers and fall color?

Thanks NHBabs- yes I will start a new thread, that's a good advice.