no conifer is going to take the reflected heat of the wall.. and the trapped heat of the sidewalk .. in AR ... success will be right up there with boxwood ... you will regret the yucca ... horrible plant.. will kill you in your sleep given opportunity.. since motive is always there... a single plant will fit.. but when it start multiplying at the crown you will have trouble they are near impossible to kill.. including running them over with the car, as mine where at the end of the driveway ... plain old green ones and digging them out.. you may as well plan on digging 4 feet down ... and they will still come back ... i hated mine so much.. i moved just to be done with them ... and for a nickle.. i will tell you how i really feel ... ken ps: so you continue to insist in staying in the shrub forum.. for recommendations on perennials .. whats that all about .. there are hundred of peeps over there.. who never come to the shrub forum... of course.. being january.. its dead as heck

tcamp, my NJ Citrus are getting kicked out TOMORROW! So DONE with this Winter, our minimum was only 15 F. but Feb. had persistent deep snow and March was COLD. This weekend all will begin the great exodus..., Citrus, Cycads, hardier palms (Phoenix and Livistonias). Deer devoured my "deer proof"plants this winter (Holly, Rhododendrons, etc)..., HAPPY SPRING!!!

Annie, I think we are only the tiniest bit hotter, but y'all are probably usually more humid. (On some days, I'd think the higher humidity would feel great, but on other days it would push the heat index into the stratosphere!) We have limited protection from south and north winds, but not so much from the west, and none from the east. Our clay holds too much moisture when it rains and not enough any other time, but it is great when well amended. We have one narrow band of sandy soil between the house and garden and that is where the guinea coop and chicken coop are, there under the shade of the big pecan tree. I have cannas and 4 o'clocks and rough-leaf dogwood under that pecan to help shelter the poultry from the predatory birds that like to eat them. Unfortunately, the soil amending has to be ongoing....year around, year in, year out. I am "only" 49, but wonder how many years I'll be able to garden at the current pace. Already, the heat bothers me so much more than it did 5 or 10 years ago. The garden gets a little shadier as the trees on three sides of it get larger, but I have to worry about their roots encroaching too. Our soil leans towards being neutral, around 6.8 to 7.2, as long as I keep it well-amended. I had alkaline soil (around 8.0) in Texas, and it was a struggle to lower it any at all. Unfortunately, our place here was once a farm where cotton was one of the crops raised, and there is cotton root rot in the soil. That gave me a lot of trouble in the early days, and there really is no "cure" for it, but I find that the more I amend and improve the soil, the less trouble I have with cotton root rot. Unfortunately, two or three thousand plants are susceptible to it, so I have to watch what I plant. I don't garden on most the land we have because the clay is like red concrete. Only about a acre or acre-and-a-half of it is tamed, about 3 acres are pastures where the wildflowers and grasses nurture the wildlife, and a little over 10 acres is forested and full of deer, bobcats, foxes, ringtailed cats, ferrets, snakes, snakes, snakes, and tons of other stuff, including possums, armadillos and skunks. We do mow 10' wide paths through the pastures so we can walk through there without stepping on copperheads (been there, done that, didn't care for the experience, but didn't get bitten either). I love, love, love living and gardening here, but I miss the longer growing season we had in Fort Worth, where the last spring freeze was often in mid to late-February and the first one often didn't hit until mid- to late-November. Still, I do like Oklahoma better even if it took me 39 years to get here! I envy the rainfall y'all get up there....in a GREAT year here, we'll have 30 to 34" inches and we'll be astounded that we got so much! I can't imagine routinely getting 35" or 40" or more. I'd sure like to try it for a year or two though! Most years since we've been here, it's been more like 26" or 28" or maybe 30" of rain, but one year it was 21" and another it was 24". In a year like that, it gets to where all you can do is water enough to keep the foundation from cracking. So, in a "good year" we STILL have drought here, and in a bad year it is unspeakably bad. I guess it is probably pretty much the same all over Oklahoma....is there ever really enough rainfall in June, July or August (well, maybe at Scott's! LOL). Our 17 keats have survived their first month and we've only had to kill two black snakes that were after them, although our predator-snake problem is usually the worst in July and August. DH keeps wanting to let the keats out of the brooder cages, but the last two times we did that when they were this old, something got them all, so they are staying in the brooder a while longer. I think the guinea coops is about 95% snake proof, but I am not convinced it is 100% snake proof. Our bunnies are disappearing, but I haven't heard the coyotes howling at night yet, so think they are still denned up with their young. A neighbor says a friend of his is seeing a cougar occasionally, but I haven't seen any signs of one near us for a couple of years, I think. Maybe it is the bobcats getting the rabbits. It has been such a great rabbit year, but I know it doesn't last long. The turtle eggs laid in the shrub bed (clay highly amended with compost) have hatched and we have little baby turtles everywhere, and we've had a huge population explosion in the hummingbird gang this year--ruby-throated, black-chinned, and rufous. Life is good! (Hot, but good.) I am very careful about exposure to the heat and sun. I don't wear sunscreen as often as I should (but I'm better than I used to be), but I always wear hats and, more often than not, I wear long-sleeved cotton shirts in the summertime. All the ranchers and farmers here do that to protect their skin, so at least I don't look like an oddball. (Being an organic gardener in a pretty non-organic county makes me enough of an oddball as it is! Not that I care. I wear my oddballness proudly!) Dawn

Blueberries for sure - they are easy here in NC, I have 12 different varieties, the best producing is Tifblue, but some were from unnamed plastic wrapped box packaged no name variety from Home Depot that grow and produce just fine. Fig trees may get wiped out with ice/snow/freeze every 4 or 5 years but will come back from the roots. They do get quite large and I hate to prune them so they are out in the way back (all 12) and are now 15'x15'. Easiest is common Brown Turkey that is prolific but the best tasting are Chicago Hardy, Black Mission. and Celeste. My biggest success was with dual variety grafted Asian Pear, but just before they fattened up the squirrels carried them all off in a matter of hours. I've learned that I have to put bird netting over all for them to tangle in, and hot pepper spray consistently when the fruit begins to be fruit and to be patient. Other than that they are pest free and don't require much care, are very pretty trees that doesn't get too tall or wide -- well worth it when the little fruits sell at Market for $1.50 each!!!!! and they make wonderful jam. Consider strawberries for a ground cover and that vegetables don't have to be in a vegetable garden especially with your garden's orientation to the sun, carrots have lovely leaves, leeks put on quite a show, sweet potatoes are gorgeous. The dwarf tomato plants seem to keep a lot of critters at bay, and basil is a really pretty plant over all, no matter the color of the leaves. I planted cucumbers in my front yard once when I lived in a subdivision and all the neighbors went nuts watching them twirl and wind un-trellised, growing a foot a day for sure, completely covering the "decorative gravel" the HOA made us use instead of lawn. Lots of pickles were given out that year much to everyone's delight. Rosemary grows wonderfully well here without pests and replaces those ugly green meatballs the contractors plant from one end of the US to the other, still growing ugly for 50 years and totally worthless. Grapes like to take over and the Japanese Beetles love them (use BT every 5 years for easy elimination of that pest). I grow some just for stuffing into Dolmas but have not had much luck getting a crop of edible fruit all at once because the birds do too. They really have to be trained, like weekly it seems, to keep them in moderation. I had one grow up a 40' ham radio tower in one season. One thing to think about is your lawn. Grass and all its needs for yucky chemicals is not so good for things you want to eat, and pine needles are a fire hazard. Think xeroscaping or ground covers instead. My friend asked, "When do you have enough plants?", and I replied, "When you can't see the ground." And, think of the birds too. In the dead of winter they love the native American Beautyberry, Cotoneaster, Pyracantha, Mahonia (people edible for jam too), and lots of Viburnum in various shapes and sizes that also provide beautiful flowers pest free. Some fruits you do not want are: Apples - cedar rust disease carrier/host because of our native red cedar trees, Peaches - heavily sprayed with chemicals is the only way to get a crop (of chemical laden fruit), Pear trees - fire blight magnet, Paw Paw - very slow to fruit and not very interesting visually, only eaten fresh and rather insipid, Blackberries - take over the world with underground roots that pop up everywhere even years later and compete with our native seedy blackberries without flavor, Crabapples - deer magnets who will come back for years and paw the ground where they were forever and ever, Raspberries - never produce fruit after the first year and die consistently without reason, Rhubarb - will never produce because our climate is too humid and we don't get a deep enough ground freeze. To answer your question about getting rid of everything that is there now - here's my motto: "This space is mine!" Nancy