What is the goal? Is the space in question between the edging and the walk? If the goal is to develop a garden in order to have a place to grow more plants, then the plants that appealed to one (and fit in the space) would be the plants to use. If the goal is to improve the looks of the house, there's no way the photograph (since the house can't be seen) would let one determine if doing this at all is a good idea. Since lining a walk usually makes the walk seem more narrow, and since walks are almost always too narrow to begin with, and because separating the lawn from the walk with vertical elements makes the walk feel confining, I'm thinking it's probably not a good idea to begin with. There are probably much better ways to improve the looks of the property. But then ... the picture.

Hi Rhaine, For a light, airy, flowery look, how about creeping baby's breath, Gypsophila repens in either pink or white. It'll be a mat of tiny flowers when it's blooming in early to mid summer, about 4" high when blooming, and xeric when established, so it won't need much water by next year. Or for something that's incredibly easy to take care of, how about a collection of all different sizes and colors of Hen & Chicks, Sempervivum. They come in everything from tiny to large ones, and all shades of green and green/red/pink combinations. I like the "cobweb" kind (arachnoideum) that look like they're covered with webs, and another favorite is the one called 'Icicle', which has a totally frosty look. Few flowers, but they, too, are xeric and will virtually never need to be watered--even right after you put them in. Here's a picture showing 3 varieties side by side. Have fun deciding what to use, Skybird Here is a link that might be useful: Hen & Chicks

Labels for the photos of April 9: Photo 1 has 3 large shrubs, front to back: Fat Albert Blue Spruce, Coppertina ninebark, Shadbush of some type. Lower growing, back to front: Amsonia hubrichtii has the feathery leaves and very pale blue flowers; the bright pink flower on a low bush in front of the blue spruce is a rhododendron, I think Independence Day; The bright purple is a Salvia, but I don't remember the type, and the one sort of between the rhodie and the salvia is a Hellebore seedling. Photo 2 has two Rhododendron Olga Mezitt with a combination of green and bright red leaves, one on the far right in front of the dark green arborvitae Techny and one in front of the bright yellow spice bush. The yellow tinted arborvitae between the Rhodie Olga Mezitt is Sunkist. The red, yellow, green shrubby thin between the Sunkist arborvitae and the right side Rhodie is one of the same varieties in the first photos, Amsonia hubrichtii in all its fall glory. The blue-green low groundcover in front of the Sunkist arborvitae is Greystone dianthus AKA pinks (though it is white flowered) and the rambly out-of-control groundcover near the front left is Nepeta AKA catmint. There are a couple of the same Fat Albert blue spruces, one to the left of the yellow spicebush, and one just peaking out to the right of the Sunkist arborvitae. Here are some photos from earlier in the life of this bed when it was in its third growing season. I deliberately left lots of room for the shrubs to grow, so there is quite a bit of mulch showing. Since then I've also added a few plants here and there as I could shoehorn them in. From June 2010 This covers much of the same area as photo 2 above, and though the trellises shown here are still in the same place, they are not nearly as visible now as they were in 2010 when this photo was taken. The Techny and Sunkist arborvitae are smaller as are the Fat Albert blue spruce. The purple flowers are the Nepeta AKA catmint, and the white flowers are the Greystone dianthus AKA pinks. The feathery plant to the right and slightly behind Greystone is the Amsonia hubrichtii in its first season. To the right of that in front of the blue spruce and also in its first season is one of the Rhododendron Olga Mezitt. From June 2010 This is a close up including the blue spruce, Amsonia, and Coppertina ninebark (plus a tiny bit of the rhododendron's leaves at the bottom) from the first photo in my earlier post. And here is a photo looking down the bed to give an idea of how relatively sparse it was in its third season. From June 2010 I spent a bit more money than I often do on the evergreens to get reasonable sized plants, though I did buy them at the autumn sales in 2007, since I wanted medium-slow growing evergreens. Many of the rest of the plants have been added as quart pots, or in the case of the hydrangeas in this bed as, rooted cuttings in 4" pots. I knew that the hydrangeas, clematis and perennials would get larger faster than the evergreens so the smaller plants would catch up. Here's a photo (taken from a higher vantage point so things look a bit shorter than they are) of the whole bed from the end where photo 1 from April 9 was taken. This is one of the quietest times of year in this bed, after many of the spring and summer bloomers have stopped, but before the fall color erupts. There are still a couple of hydrangeas not very visible in this photo, some asters, colchicum bulbs blooming, and the white fluffy seedheads of clematis along with varied foliage texture and color.

IME, areas that get snow dump need to have shrubs that can be pruned back to the ground in really bad winters to remove the broken and bent branches to allow the shrub to regrow to its natural shape. One plant that will do this well is spirea. In good years, I just leave it. In bad years, it gets pruned to less than 6" before leaf out, and then regrows starting within a week or so, and within 3 weeks it is looking good again. My favorite spirea is 'Ogon' (occasionally sold as Mellow Yellow) which has narrow chartreuse-gold foliage. The smaller Hydrangea paniculatas would probably be OK with severe pruning, though not below a foot or so, but in good years wouldn't exceed 3'-5' depending on the variety, and all can be pruned for size. Check out H. paniculata Bobo, Dharuma, Little Quickfire, and Little Lime. Little Quickfire, Bobo and Dharuma should start blooming in late June or early July for you and continue pretty much through fall, which flowers starting white and slowly changing to various shades of pink as they age. Other than that, I can't think of any shrubs off the top of my head that will both enjoy the west exposure and tolerate the snow dump. IME, lilacs will sustain a lot of damage with heavy snow, Weigela will be misshapen, and though I don't have a Deutzia in a snow dump area, I find the branches delicate enough so that I don't think that they would tolerate the heavy snow well. Hopefully someone else will have experience with some shrubs that will be OK with hot sun and snow dump. For the rest of your plants, I would look at some of the more substantial perennials that would be large enough to substitute as shrubs, but not mind the western sun in summer and since they die back to the ground in winter, the snow wouldn't be an issue. Look at Baptisia (I particularly like 'Carolina Moonlight', 'Purple Smoke', and the species B. australis), Amsonia hubrichtii, some of the larger fall asters such as Aster Laevis 'Blue Bird', Veronicastrium, some of the shorter clematis such as Piilu (AKA Little Duckling) or Justa, both of which are only 5'-6', but can be grown shorter by using a 4' trellis and letting it spill down from the top. Oriental/trumpet-cross lilies (I've seen them called orienpet lilies) seem more resistant to red lily beetles IME, and are available in various heights.