and if you pass judgement about the state of the property from the photos, please be kind. im overwhelmed with just the mowing of the lawn and the raking. before this i had always been living in apartments. dont know really how to take care of the plants living on the property. not a good excuse, but its what im using today. hopefully ill be able to plant and water and feed the replacements okay and maybe they will survive into 2013...

I won't pass any judgement, (because I don't see anything all that bad), but am curious if you are positive that all of the pics reflect the same (kind of) shrub?

Do you know what you might have done to have 'killed' 10 of them? Short of spraying them, shrubs are usually pretty indestructible. Often, even after cutting them to the ground, they will continue to sprout new growth and survive.

I too am curious to know what they are, especially since they don't all look like the same thing. I have some 'guesses', but am not very sure about them....and they are bad shrubs, ...ie invasive non native ones.

Sue

Boxwood or privet for the ones with oppositely arranged leaves.

The last two photos are boxwood.

I think the first one is boxwood, too, though that's hard to tell without a foliage close up - unless the last two photos are a close up of this same shrub.

Photos 2 and 3 look like barberry (berberis) to me, but would have to see a foliage close up to know for sure.

theyre not the same? ill retake photos. and keep track of where i am shooting.

thats funny that i just assumed they were all the same. "oh theyre just those bushes" i thought. never occurred to me that there might be more than one kind planted.

thank you! ill be back here and follow up.

Yep, Berberis and Buxus.

Photos 2 and 3 look like barberry (berberis) to me, but would have to see a foliage close up to know for sure.
Do all barberries have thorns?

ill retake photos. and keep track of where i am shooting.

I agree - there are two Buxus there and the others are different shrubs. Berberis is a definite candidate. I also wonder how you managed to 'kill' them. Basically those two just need to be ignored and they will grow fine. Did you try to 'help' them in some way?

If the cat is relevant i.e. you have one, it is possible that the brown patch on the first box is the result of a tom marking its territory.

BTW, I'm not sure what is supposed to be wrong with the state of the property. It's Autumn and I see some leaves. Seems normal to me.

hmm. i guess theres no way to edit original postings (or there is and im just not seeing the way). anyway, ill repost the photos in this post.

so apparently there are at least three types of bushes on the rental property's front and sides.

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there is this (boxwood):
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then theres this second type. it has nasty thorns that i forgot all about. berberis?:
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and then i saw that the ones on the side of the house are probably different from the other two. those guys were trimmed last year by about 1/3rd and i waited for them to recover but they never really did:
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lastly, this isnt a bush but it grew right next to one. i didnt plant it. it just popped up. what is this?
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sues comment "and they are bad shrubs, ...ie invasive non native ones" had me thinking that maybe i dont need to replace the bushes with exactly the same shrubs? was she talking about the possible berberis?

im so grateful, by the way, for all this help. i feel encouraged!

The pink flowers are a bulb, Lycoris squamigera, called Naked Ladies due to their flowering without the presence of foliage.

The other bush from the side of the house is a Lilac, possibly 'Palibin'.

thank you all for your help! i should be able to replace whats lost now that i have some idea of what to get!

All the shrubs have been whacked back, you might want to move them out away from the house and let them develop their natural shapes. The barberry in particular produces an arching specimen that is much more pleasant when not squared off. And the lilac does not flower so well when lopped. Box is often sheared into various shapes but you do not appear to have a formal setting where geometric shearing and topiary is compatible.

At least not where the box are currently positioned.

Regarding the lilac: it has leaves still this time of year, so clearly it isn't dead. A lilac that size didn't die just from being cut back. See the 2 largest stems in your last picture? Cut those off near ground level. Now wait and in the spring see what comes out from the remaining shoots. You should get new growth shooting up from the roots, in addition to new branching off of what is there.

Now for a related quesion: Do you, as the tenant, have permission to be moving, removing, replacing shrubbery, and if so...does it include replacing with other species? If not, please don't do anything else without that permission.