A quick internet search for nakuro nishiki shows an approximate mature size of 6’ x 6’. I also see them grown as mini-trees. If this is true, you’ve committed yourself to a lifetime of trimming to keep them smallish. If they are allowed to grow 6’ wide, they’ll be way too big for this narrow bed, hiding the heuchera and spilling onto the porch floor.

I think I saw your original post, and I STILL love those heuchera. Very nice.

And BTW, I don’t see anything wrong with your porch foundation. It looks in good shape, neat and clean. IMO you are overworried about covering it up.

@littlebug Zone 5 Missouri hello again. Yes, I love the heuchera! I dont necessarily mind trimming the willow-which I will need to learn how to do, BUT, I dont want them to turn out to be overgrown beasts like the arborviate shrubs we had. I could just cry because of the work & money we put into this.

Gert H check out my previous thread onDappled Willow

I'm so sorry...but we had this exact shrub for 6 years, and it was an overgrown beast.

It was newly planted in our front yard when we moved into our house. The first year, it was fine, about 6 feet. The year after that, it hit 15 by July, and we trimmed it—carefully at first, because we didn't want to risk damaging the plant. Hah. Well, by the last year we had it in there, we would cut it to the ground in October to see if the hard prune/frost combo would do us the favor of killing it...and it was right back at it in April.

We eventually had to pull it out with a truck and cut the stump with a chainsaw.

If you're located somewhere pretty cold or with a short growing season, they might not be as vigorous. But around here (zone 6, southeastern PA), they are unstoppable. I've seen the 4-6 feet figure elsewhere, but when I searched my google photos app for a photo of this beast, I also found a plant tag for it at a nursery that has it at 15'-20'. (We hated this shrub and I remember being aghast as I sent this to my husband.)

Google maps screenshot. Here it's about 2/3 of the size it wanted to be.

My husband cutting it to the ground in the fall a few years ago. It was just so much trimming and hauling away branches. I love gardening. I don't love driving brush to the compost yard.

I'm so sorry to be the bearer of bad news right as you finished the mulch on this. It feels terrible to sink time and money into something that you realize you're going to have to undo.

Spirea might be more the size you're looking for—3-4 feet, will hide the boring rectangle of your foundation but not anything else. Or some of the mediumish panicle hydrangeas like little lime.

In my neck of the woods, those dappled willows get huge. I know it's painful, but it's much easier to fix the problem now than battle them as they outgrow your space. You can probably recoup some of your investment by selling them on Craigslist or FB Marketplace.

I would look for a small, slow-growing evergreen for year-round interest at the front of your house - maybe one of the rounded arborvitaes. Mr Bowling Ball is a well-behaved cultivar that will need absolutely nothing from you, other than water in dry periods as it gets established. Tater Tot and Fire Chief are other arborvitaes that stay small. Other ideas: Little Gem Norway Spruce, Pusch Norway Spruce.

If you don't want a conifer, there are also evergreen shrubs like the smaller boxwood cultivars, hardier small azaleas/rhodies or Gem Box Inkberry to consider. There are lots of options. Be sure to check the 10 year size on the tag and do some Googling before committing.

@mad_gallica (z5 Eastern NY) We are NE PA. Sun early morning to mid day. There was a railing. We removed it because it was shabby & dated. We never sit on the porch, but I sure as heck had to have one when looking for a house. We had 3 fire chief arborviate in the front, that grew to porch height. They got very bushy despite yearly trimming. On the side we emeral green arborviates. I think I am going to have to replace those willow shrubs because I just dont want the same headache. My sister thought maybe a low growing ornamental grass.

@teresa_or

We looked at Mr Bowling Ball , what they had at the nursery were very small & she said it will only grow a tiny bit each year. I was afraid it would look goofy being same size as the hechura. We had Fire Chief arborvitaes. The variety we bought was suppsoed to stay small. Ours grew so big & bushy. I found Little Gem Norway Spruce. I Loved them, but they only had 2 & they were very different in size. They said they had no idea if anymore were coming in. We had something similiar to Gem Box Inkberry before the Fire Chief. One winter the heavy snow pushed all of the branches out & 2 died. When we visited one nursery, I found something I liked, but he said without full sun all day, they wont die, but they will lose leaves & look sparse & you wont like them. At least he was honest. I am open to anything really. Maybe a another perenial flower/plant. I just want something taller than hechura , something that will get about 3 x 3 feet. Suprisingly my hechura did not die off last winter!

@lw (6b/7a SE Pennsylvania) we just had a heck of a time getting rid of emerald green arborviates. Not anywhere near beastly as what you cut down. My husband is a nut & wanted the exercise, so he use a pick & axe to remove 2. The other 2 had to be pulled using chains & truck.

@lw (6b/7a SE Pennsylvania) I see some smaller shrubs in front of your home. What are they?

here is how i look for the mature size of any given plant.. note the proper latin name in the search...

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=Salix+integra+%27Hakuro+Nishiki%27&iax=images&ia=images

imo.. your plants are at lest 3 to 5 feet too close to the foundation...

remember.. foundation plants are planted to hide the foundation.. not on the foundation...

ken

Maybe do a search for miniature shrubs. I have one growing in several spots. Mini Gold Mound Spirea. Here is a pic of it. I too, needed something that wouldn't get too big. I'm sure there are other minis for you to choose from, though. FYI; mine is only about 16" away from the birdbath and there's a small ornamental grass behind that. Those two plants are two years old. It's rated for zones 4-8 and gets 18" tall x 24" wide. Mines not quite that wide.

Right now the only winter interest you have is the little evergreen planted off the corner. Remember 'winter', when plants look dormant, is almost six months, so you do want to plan for that.

Ignore my shrubs; they were a bunch of ratty azaleas and hosts planted by the previous owner and are now gone. The gold spirea would look nice with your coral bells, but they look pretty rough in the winter.

I'm a little late to this conversation but agree with others that these willows are way too big. ONE would be way too big. They are, in my opinion, gorgeous in the right spot, but I don't think it's next to your porch!

Photo is blurry but the Hakuro Nishiki willow is on the left. This whole area is swampy (that pathway is redone every single spring because the water covers it every year and washes away the mulch) so this is optimal condition for a willow, but you can see how big it gets.

Another view of the same HN willow. Pay no attention to the yellow - I was showing someone the astilbes in this garden. Also, pay no attention to my thumb at the top lol.

For the front, perhaps a small holly would work- i. glabra compacta or shamrock, or mix the evergreen with deciduos berried hollies - Berry Poppins or Little Goblin. I think they all grow about 3-4 feet.

I think for the side I would make that bed deeper (bring it farther out from the house).

Good luck and let us know what you decide.

:)

Dee

Yes, dappled willows get tall fast. You could leave them on the wall were a/c is but the front may be problematic. Unless you want to be hidden. They do okay after trimming. But I sometimes trim 3 x a summer :). In the winter they are bare. Maybe transplant elsewhere. A photo after I trimmed ours :)

Trying the photo again.

@R Joy Your pic didnt come through

@diggerdee zone 6 CT the bed on the side was deeper. But when we re did things, we brought it back in. I know it doesnt look great but we are done with upkeep, tired of spending weekends weeding. My back, hips, knees,,,,the list can go on. Plus we each work one full time plus one part time job on weekends.

Gert, in the winter - bare. I lay down cardboard as weed barrier. Ph 2 Spring pretty and mulched.

Gert, I hear you on the workload - it's a lot and unfortunately we can't spend all our time in the garden lol. I didn't mean to imply that it didn't look good - it's neater than any bed I have lol. I was just thinking that if you are going to plant large shubs there, the bed should be deeper to accomodate them - you don't want to plant too close to the house. And if you wanted it can be done gradually - I've been putting in a shrub border along my property boundary and have been expanding inwards into my yard little by little (about a foot at a time) each year.. Same way Joy does - cardboard or newspaper, mulch, bingo!

Good luck with your choices!

:)

Dee

I asked a local nursery how they determine the size on the tags. Shrubs/trees continue to grow often, after all. Am I buying a plant that will be 6’ in 20 years, or 6’ in 5 years and then continue to grow until it is much bigger than I had wanted? He said the tags are supposed to represent the size after ten years. Did all of your HN Japanese Willows excered that size well before 10 years? The 10-years timeline explains why so many people in my area (and potentially on this thread) talk about how large their 20-plus-year-old Japanese Willow is!

Reading over this thread, and the previous one, I think I see the problem. Mulch has to be weeded. The more mulch, the more weeding. So someone who prefers the aesthetic of spaced out plants, with visible mulch between them, prefers a higher maintenance garden than someone who has plants growing together. If you take Joy's last picture, and move the mulch line *under* the shrubs, where the lawnmower can reach, but there isn't much, if any mulch showing, Aside from how often the shrubs need pruned and regular lawnmowing, there is very little weeding needed. I have a short hedge of boxwood in my backyard that is treated like that, and I pull a handful of weeds a year. The rest the lawnmower does.

deanna I'm not sure if your question was directed at anyone in particular, or just thrown out there in general, but my willows (there is a second one in that garden above) reached that height within about three years - just very large very fast! Again, in my case, I planted them because this is a very swampy area and I wanted the willows to suck up water, so they loved the site and are very happy there. Perhaps growth in a "normal" garden situation would be slower??

:)

Dee

When they were introduced, there was a strong suggestion that they be pollarded. 'For best foliage color, cut back hard in the spring', or something like that was considered part of their culture. It's the same for red twig dogwoods, and some other willows that are grown for stem color. So the 4 - 6 ft size is for plants cut down regularly. Yes, this is a plant capable of growing six feet in a year, in this climate. Of course, people got tired of cutting them back. There is one in my neighborhood being grown as a tree. I've been watching to see how big it will get. Right now it's about 20 ft, and not getting noticably larger. I should probably get one for my swamp. I'd rather have a weeping willow, but that would be the end of swamp tree planting.

Caution--thread hijack. :) I want to respond to the comment on my 'mulch line'. What the photos above don't show is how steep the slope is that I have trouble even with the lawn tractor to mow and hard on knees with push mower since it's sloped. I purposely put mulch out far to reduce the need for mowing. This photo, if you gauge by the path, shows the steepness. The dappled willow on the right. I can only get the lawn tractor so far up under the branches to cut grass in there, thus the mulch, plus the mulch brought out a bit made a more even walking path for me to tred. So I get what was said above about needing to weed mulch but in this scenario, I made the right choice for the location.