I'm in zone 5 Ottawa,Canada. Zone 4 for you in the US. They used to say you couldn't grow J.maples around here. But for 20 years I always could, and have never lost any, except 2 variegated ones. I have about 25 varieties, a sort of J. maple forest in my back yard & I am running out of room. Good thing they are dwarf trees, unlike our native maples that grow to 50 ft. I wholesale them from (grown in)BC, zone 7-8. They do not loose hardiness by grafting and propagating in a milder climate. The hardiness is built into the plant. I will say that they can sometimes be slow to establish, and this is the important part. Any tree should be planted early and well cared for in the first season, so it is well established going into it's first winter. I don't believe in bare root trees doing well, too slow to establish, or over wintering in a pot. They should always be planted in the ground and well mulched. I do think they prefer a more acidic soil. Ours is neutral approx. 6-7ph, so I spread sulphur everywhere every couple of years to acidify a little.(I don't like pink hydrangeas, prefer blue) I saw a study once, out of U of Michigan I think, where when they tested plants, and they found that plants growing in acidic soil seemed a little hardier than the same plants growing in more alkaline soils. In the past I have used geo-textile fleece as a winter cover for the first few winters, but snow makes a great insulator as well. I get a bit of tip dieback sometimes, but it doesn't matter since they grow back very well, as if they were pruned. There is a sort of wilt going around in J. maples lately, others have noticed as well. It doesn't hurt the tree, it just attacks some of the newest growing tips as they are finished flushing out in summer....sort of self pruning. We regularly get to minus 22 celcius (-10 far.)here most winters, with minimal problems. Even with last winter, the worst in 20 yrs., there were no losses. The only damage I ever notice is the heavy snow pack in spring, will sometimes crack the weeping types as it weighs them down and melts. Variegated types do seem less hardy, possibly due to the fact that variegation is a mutation and therefore weaker. Red and green types are perfectly hardy. They all seem hardier as they get older. thanks, Rich

Agree as well, AKA Jack in the Pulpit.

It would be lovely to see the bed in context, showing then entire length of the bed and its surroundings including the house, any trees, driveway and walkway locations, etc. If you stand opposite the front door about 15' out and then take a series of photos that overlap starting facing the left property line and then rotating and taking photos as you turn to end up facing the right property line. 2' wide (front to back depth) isn't deep enough to make an attractive arrangement IME. I originally had 4' beds, but they ended up looking far too narrow to look good with the house, and so now my narrowest beds are 6' and most are 8' or more. The depth gives room for shrubs to provide structure and winter interest at the back and then a combination of groundcovers, perennials, and bulbs toward the front. It is difficult to make a single straight line of plants look truly appealing IME. It may seem like that is overkill and will require many plants, but if you choose plants that are easily divided (like your hosta) or started from seed, the space will fill faster than you think. What is the shrub growing by the trellis?

“I photoshopped them to see how they should fit the space with time.” Unfortunately, Photoshop won’t tell you this because the photos of the bushes and of the site, being from different sources, may not be in proportion. For instance, if you take a photo of a 2 year old from 3’ away and an adult from 100’ away, the 2 year old will take up more of the photo, almost filling it, while the adult will only take up a tiny part of her photo, even though the adult is larger in reality. This is why FloralUK is asking about dimensions of the garden. For three Bobos to fit, since they each grow to about 4’, you need about 10’ to give the slightly overlapping hedge look you have in your Photoshopped image. The easiest way to figure out spacing is with graph paper with each box representing 6” or other standard dimension. Then you can draw circles of the expected shrub size on a proportionate garden drawing. Or in a small space, just by knowing the size of the space and the expected size of the shrubs, a bit of multiplying with a calculator will tell you if you have enough room. Bobos: 4’wide x 3 shrubs = 12’ minus a couple feet so that they overlap. Are all those plants in this one space or are some of them in other parts of the yard? Quickfire hydrangea is a great choice for long season color, but will be relatively large, and you have winter interest with several types of evergreens and the crabapple. Are they placed where you can see them from indoors for winter enjoyment? If you have a plot plan from the city, you can print that larger such as 1”=1’ and use that to help plan for the whole yard.