If you don't like looking at gaps, and mulch isn't what you had in mind, then you could always fill in the area with a fast growing ground cover, annuals, or short lived, low growing perennials to fill the space until the shrub grows in.

Thanks for you response. Yes, I thought about using perennials that will not last too long or that I can move later. I also wonder about putting a plant in pot-and-all, then digging it up and replacing it periodically. So maybe I'll ask the local nursery to help me select the best perennials, with annuals as a back-up plan.

Plant shrubs closer together, to form drifts of one kind same as is done with herbaceous plants. Some kinds of shrubs, big-leaved ones for instance would be planted here and there in a planting as specimen plants but many others produce a preferable flowing appearance planting in interlocking drifts. The drift becomes the unit, instead of the individual shrub so the shrubs making up the drift are not spaced for full mature development.

Yes to what Bboy has said. I probably garden in a far smaller space than yours, but one strategy I enjoy is to buy plants small and plant them close together. Then one appears to grow through another later on. For example, I planted a red-leaved Loropetalum and a silver-leaved Eucalyptus right next to each other when they were small, so that later the silver seemed to emerge right from the red shrub. (Things have changed again, but it looked great!). If I had such an opportunity again today I would use something like a ground cover juniper, a spreading Japanese maple, and a specimen pine cultivar or Rhodo or some other combination with foliage contrasts that provide enjoyment through the year.

But to actually answer your question :-) if you do just want to wait for that one shrub to fill out, I'd go with either annuals or with perennials that can handle a change in conditions - sun now, shade once the shrub grows. Hostas (sun-tolerant such as Guacamole) and hellebores come to mind. It depends on what kind of work you enjoy more - annual selection and planting, or perennial maintenance.

KarinL

Do I plant something there intending to dig it up later?

Yup.

If you have a shrub that is a specimen or focal point, often times, if you grow it from a baby, it takes a long time to get it large enough to become the focal point. So yes, plant other stuff with it and expect to move or loose them over time.

For example, I have a spot that I have been growing an oakleaf hydrangea. It was a one quart pot when I started it. It will be several years before it becomes the speciment that it needs to be. I've surrouded it with violets and woodland sunflowers, weedy species that I don't care if they survive or not, but they will be good filler until the hydrangea grows. And it grew considerably this year....

The other solution is of course to buy larger, more expensive specimens.

Possibly part of what I said has blown by. A drift is several specimens of the same kind of plant arranged closely together to form a flowing shape that can interlock with other drifts in a mixed planting. Planting only one of each kind, with space between is called tombstone or dot planting. It lacks the relaxed and finished appearance of planting in drifts.

Yes, sorry, I absorbed the "multi-" but overlooked the "many of same;" mea culpa. I guess you're picturing the property as being even larger than I'm imagining. Short of an estate, the concept of multiples of the same plant simply doesn't register with me as rational for most home gardens. But it's true that it's what some settings need and what some owners want. Home landscapes maybe, but not home gardens - how's that for a distinction?

KarinL

Tombstone or Dot planting, as Bboy describes, is also more maintenance intesive. The open areas must be weeded and mulched. Interlocking drifts, if the shrubs are sufficenlty tall (>2 feeet) will shade and crowd out weeds. It's still a good idea to mulch for the health of the plant, but not critical in regards to appearance (since it can't be seen). Think of the drift as just a

To Drift or not to drift is another design question that is situational. If your bed is viewed from a distance, then a drift has visual weight and substance on scale with the surroundings and area in your field of vision.

For a bed viewed up close a drift of plants may take up your field of vision and while unified in appearance may lack any visual excitement that a viginette of non-drift contrasting foliage or shapes would provide.

Can different varieties/cultivars of the same genus/species be treated like drifts? For example, Viburnum, will it work if similiar heights are placed together and maybe faced down with shorter varieties of the same species?
Ally

You have to balance your values. Price, time, and maintenance.

Invest in a much bigger plant, if time and maintenance is a higher investment that dollars.

Deal with the open space if investing in filler plants and transplanting them later is a higher price than waiting.

Invest in smaller filler plants and some transplanting down the road as you wait for your smaller plant to mature into the rest of the composition if your values are there.

You could also investigate some maintenance measures to reduce the size of your mature plants in order to make the smaller one fit in better.

Only you know the balance of values that work for you.

Thanks again for your responses. I have been out to look at that corner and back to re-read this thread. I have some mulch in the shed that I can put down first, and tomorrow morning I think I'll make a run to the local garden center and pick up some "filler" plants. Maybe perennials, maybe some ground cover, maybe both.

Yes, I see this shrub as a focal point, now that I have chosen that location (not my original plan, actually) for it. I might want to see it surrounded by perennials filling in that corner, at least for a while. Moving plants as things progress won't bother me. It will be a valuable learning experience as I go along.

Yes, to ally ld's question. That concept was discussed a bit on a thread some time ago.

Now that there are new "dwarf" varieties of some older perennials, you could put smaller coneflowers in front of taller, same for Russian sage, ornamental grasses, hostas, lots of things. For shrubs, has been done for years with large and small azaleas, hydrangeas. So there are some circumstances in which you might want similar form, bloom time, but want a stepped-down appearance (or in the case I was trying, sloped down laterally) that can't be achieved by a large drift of the same cultivar and you can't identify another species that will give the right effect.

Also can work to provide "repetition" if a species works well in your growing conditions and you want to repeat it throughout the landscape, but with some variation.

Drifts are not limited to large spaces. In small spaces, such as where a bed narrows down to a point small-growing, small-leaved shrubs should be used anyway. A drift of dwarf shrubs like heathers can be made up of a number of individual specimens yet still take up only a small area.

Drifts are used to support the feeling of movement produced by flowing bed shapes. Where in the bed a kind of shrub is used determines how many of it are planted.