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Help deciding on shrubs!
Hubby and I finally ripped out the overgrown bushes from the front of our house, and now we don't know what to replace them with.
There's about 2 feet of gray brick before the siding of the house begins, so we're looking to hide that. A very helpful man at our local nursery suggested we go with evergreen shrubs to hide it year-round... but now we need help choosing one!!
We would like something that flowers at least part of the year, so we're thinking azalea, rhododendron, andromeda or weigela. Or even a mixture of one or two to keep things interesting!
Does anyone have any insight on which of those bushes would work best in southern NY??
We get full sun (otherwise I'd want hydrangeas!!) and the soil is extremely sandy...
Thanks in advance!
Re: Help deciding on shrubs!
Of the plants you named, the only one I'd plant in full sun is Weigela, which isn't evergreen.
Do you want it to only grow 2' tall? The criteria you listed are extremely limiting. I can't think of an evergreen with showy blooms for full sun in your zone, except maybe a couple of Yucca species.
You may want to decide which is more important- the evergreen or the flowers. Unless you have shade, they don't commonly go together.
hmm... I guess I should do more research. The man at the nursery told us weigela is evergreen.
We want them to grow at least 2 feet tall. My husband wants them all to flower, but they don't have to if the sun is just going to dry them out. We really just want to avoid planting the same high-maintenance shrubs that we cut down.
We're somewhat flexible... just looking for suggestions, since I clearly have no clue.
There are many sun evergreens that are at least 2' tall- Holly, Box, Ligustrum, Osmanthus, and Euonymous all come to mind.
What shrubs did you remove? Just so I know what you consider "high maintenance".
Azaleas and rhodos need PART sun. In nature, they're understory forest plants, so they're used to dappled shade; they'll fry in full sun. I'm not familiar with andromeda.
My suggestion is indian hawthorn. Flowers either white or pink in the spring and has very pretty evergreen leaves and loves full sun.
A helpful hint: decide before you plant how much yard work you want to do. I don't ever, ever want to prune a shrub, so I only buy shrubs that get to the max height I want. The indian hawthorns I chose for my front beds get 3'x4' - I won't ever need to touch them. The ligistrum and euonymus pp suggested have several varieties that get BIG. Read the tags at the nursery and plant wisely.
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Thinking of doing cosmetic updates to a dated home? These were our costs.
Hmmm... my azaleas do fine in full sun. I was actually going to suggest azaleas, but they will need trimming from time to time.
I personally would not recommend putting holly up close to the house. If you have to get in behind/near it for house maintenance or anything (e.g., putting up holiday decor) it sticks you. I've had it in front of two houses now and like that it is evergreen, but the sticking is so annoying.
There are lots of hollies & not all are prickly. Japanese holly (Ilex crenata) basically looks like boxwood but is often cheaper.
I'd suggest putting a mix of evergreen and deciduous shrubs. That way you can have some nice flowering shrubs but it won't look completely bare in the winter.
We're redoing our front flower beds and using a lot of dwarf conifers because they are evergreen, low maintenance, won't ever out grow the space, and need very little pruning. Conifer are more interesting than you would think. They can be blue, yellow, white tipped, pink tipped, have red or blue cones, have curled needles with white undersides, change colors throughout the year, and can grow in random unique shapes (check out Chamaecyparis). Here's some websites I found helpful:
http://www.iseli-nursery.com/index.htm
http://www.richsfoxwillowpines.com/catalog/?category=2