The yellow brooms in bloom last year.

Too many photos, but since they are probably goners I wanted to enjoy them one last time. They were always so fantastic!

These are my purple brooms from last year. Can't yet tell if they made it. They aren't evergreen in the winter like the yellow brooms were. You can see the yellow brooms behind them showing how they normally look in winter.

Thanks! I will research those. We also had some phlox die this year.

I guess we just pull out the dead stuff and allow the live stuff to fill back in. Sort of sad display this year as usually this bed is super colorful.

Another plant idea (maybe a variety of plants to replace your brooms would be good in case weather conditions kill off all of a certain type of plant again) with a similar growth habit is gro-low sumac. I have a couple of drifts of it along our driveway and it's easy to maintain and is especially pretty in the fall when it turns red. It does sucker (so do the contoneasters), but that doesn't bother me. I've had a few volunteers pop up over the years and have transplanted them to other beds to replace other plants that have died.

Also, for some yellow in your beds you could try some yellow Creeping Jenny at the front of your beds to replace the phlox that died. I planted a few plugs last year to get some more yellow foliage in my garden, and am really enjoying the pops of yellow. I'm planning to scatter more of it throughout the yard this year.

Thanks for the suggestions. The gro-low sumac looks really nice. We had a bunch of staghorn sumac when we bought the house but it was very invasive and we ended up getting rid of it. If the gro-low could stay in it's own bed it would work. I will have to research.

I am thinking of trying for something that is white or pink. I already have alot of purple. The yellow was a bit overpowering on the yellow brooms.

We have moved some of the yellow ice plants up to the holes that are more sunny where we've pulled the dead brooms out. Their redeeming features include no maintenance, hardy, spread well and turn a beautiful red in the winter. But I've never tried them on the upper bed so have to see if they survive there.

We planted a staghorn sumac 15 or so years ago and it was beautiful, but suckered nonstop. We got sick of it and ended up digging it all up. Thankfully, the gro-low has not been difficult to keep in bounds like that. I bought very small starter plants from High Country Gardens and for the first 6 years or so I kind of wished it would spread because I wanted more in another area. It finally filled in and after maybe 10 years it did start to spread a bit, but it's easy to prune back or pull up anywhere you don't want it. I don't find that it suckers like the staghorn, and it's low enough that you can walk between the branches to get into a bed to pull the occasional weed. I love that the dense branches don't die back like so many shrubs do here in Colorado over the winter, so it is very low maintenance. I spend weeks in the spring pruning back the dead branches of our many shrubs (various viburnum, contoneaster, ninebark, spirea, smokebush, coralberry, barberry, elderberry, hydrangea, and rose bushes). I don't mind pruning things, but it's time consuming and a bit overwhelming this time of year, so it's a relief to have some things that don't need attention.

I have never grown ice plant before, but I'm intrigued... I may need to find a spot for some.

I'm a big fan of putting in no trim, no work plants. My Apache Plume is that way. Maybe I will just get some more of it. It is pretty all year, including the winter.