Cynthia, clematis will do good on azaleas only if they are grown not in a considerable shade. Here in CT we could grow rhododendrons and azaleas almost in full sun if adequate moisture provided, though I don't think this will be a case in TX. Yes, I have clematis on azalea whole summer and combo blooms like this: May-azalea, June and September-clematis. They don't have a bloom time overlap, so no color clashes issue exists. Most clems need a fair amount of sun to bloom, though some are more shade tolerant than the others. You know better your azaleas particular growing conditions, so you have to decide if clematis will get enough sun to bloom. I would definitely look for group 3 clematis for one and only reason, they bloom on new wood, so they could be cut in early spring and their first flush will NOT coincide with azaleas, thus making azalea interesting AGAIN in early summer and in early fall. You have there gorgeous TX native Cl. texensis (scarlet) which IMO will be more appropriate on azalea than more flashy large-flowering cultivars. There are some other cultivars of C.texensis (C.coccinea) in different than scarlet colors if you are looking for particular color scheme. Duchess of Albany (pink), Countess of Onslow (violet-purple) to name a few of the most readily available. Good luck. Sounds like you going to have a nice bed there.

Encore azaleas are a new hybrid that has been patended. They are a large type which was made by crossing a regular spring flowering large azalea with a totally different species, Rhododendron oldhamii which comes from Asia and flowers in the summer. They are used more up north and Florida seems to be in the lower part of their growing range, so I can't say how good they are for our area. I have used azaleas in probably 600 landscapes and can tell you what I like. Semi dwarf azaleas flower longer than any other azalea. They start around October and constantly flower until late spring.(there are a few tricks and secrets to getting them flower more than they might otherwise) The large azaleas only flower for about a month in the spring. For the most flowering, "Fashion" was my all time favorite. For pinks, the Duc De Rohan and Duchess were very good. Fashion is like and orange-red. Red Ruffle was widely used, but they seem to get fungus more and can get a little messed up looking if the conditions aren't exactly right.Dogwood is a decent white. These all would be more compact than the large type and can get pretty thick with foliage and also with flowers.

Hello again all, yes thanks pm2 - I guess it is time for an update! After a late spring with much rain and cold in March, we are starting to dry out and get some sun and warmth. The daffodils are right on schedule, with the dogwoods maybe just a few days behind normal. The blooms are still a bit greenish but in a few days the hillsides will be glorious with white. The redbuds have been out for a week or so now, I just planted one in the front yard, even though we are surrounded by them in the woods, I just love them. There are bluebird eggs in the box on the top of the hill and today is in the 70s so all is right with the world! Because we've had such a long cold wet spring it's been hard to get into the gardens, especially with our clay. I dug out cannas I wanted to divide yesterday and they came up with clods of wet clay attached. Still a bit early to do serious digging. The front shade bed however was easier to dig because of all the compost I added last year so I did add some early color that it really needed. 'Chattahoochee' phlox and 'Woodside Gold' columbine went in to replace the anemones I lost last year to insects. The combination of tiny light pink flowers of pulmonaria, the baby blue of the brunnera, blue with a purple eye on the phlox, and pink and purple columbine make a lovely spring show. I had to watch where I dug however because some of the hostas are so slow to emerge and I risk digging into them. I have to remember to plant some bulbs around them so I don't forget where they are. As to the shrub changes, I moved the Itea to the woods garden after I realized it would take over and sucker in this small garden space. I replaced it with a Chamaecyparis Gold Mop which grows very slowly and will provide that gold foliage I'm looking for. The Sarcococca is kind of sitting there, it looks like it got a bit of tip burn, this area gets winter sun so it may not be happy with that. I never did get the flowers in January, unless I missed them. The Calycanthus is forming flower buds, I can't wait to see, and especially smell them. The clethra is still thinking about leafing out, it is alway late to do so. The spirea and the cornus are leafed out and came through fine, the loropetalum suffered some leaf dieback, but I just picked off the brown leaves and it is now leafing out to the tips. I may have lost the flowerbuds but I don't know yet, this is a new plant for me so it might just surprise me yet. I may have to move it if it gets too big which I'm finding out may be the case. I had to remove the large Foster's holly at the corner of the house as it was too close to the foundation and was beginning to heave and crack the brick so I lost some midday shade. I may move the loropetalum there and replace it with a shrub cutleaf japanese maple or maybe just some perennials. The Old Gold juniper is close by and will probably need the room eventually. I didn't know what to expect with the loropetalum as far as hardiness or size so I just plopped it in and am waiting to see. It's a great plant, the leaf color is terrific and if it blooms I'll get a great mass of bright pink. On the other side I had success with a large Kalmia Olympic Fire but a smaller one I planted next to it is not looking great. The Rainbow leucothoe is suffering as well, I did know they are fussy as to conditions so it may get the heave-ho. The pieris are doing fine as are the acuba. I lost all my azaleas to the Easter freeze last year, I had hoped they would bounce back but I'm going to have to dig them out and replace them. I did get rid of a large yew and replaced it with a Viburnum 'Conoy' which made it through the winter in fine shape and is forming flower buds now. It kept about half its foliage over the winter. It should eventually take the place of the yew and the strugging kalmia. I may add another one instead of replacing the three Glacier azaleas I lost and just replacing the Renee Michelle azaleas in front of it. By far my greatest joy has been the hellebores I added around the two Japanese maples. They have doubled in size and have been blooming since February. Last year they kept blooming into the summer and the foliage is evergreen. I can't say enough good things about them. As for the ferns, the lady ferns are up and the male ferns are thinking about it. I'll probably move the lady ferns to the woods garden, they are just so fragile and in late summer get a bit tattered, so not the best choice for a front garden. The male ferns were sturdy and held up well last year, but are a bit uninteresting. I'll probably replace them with Japanese painted ferns this year. I have quite a few in my back garden and they have done very well and provide that purple color I love. They are a bit more spready though where I could use some more height. I snapped a few photos yesterday of my fav plant combos in the shade bed. The dogwood is the crowning glory! Heuchera 'Amethyst Mist' and lysymachia Pulmonaria 'Mrs Moon' and 'Silver Indiana' heuchera Heuchera 'Frosted Violet' and Hellebore 'Royal Heritage' Heucherella 'Stoplight' and Asian ginger Pulmonaria 'Mrs Moon' and lysymachia Unfurling leaves of 'Minuteman' hosta Columbines Edging tapestry Phlox 'Chattahoochie' and Pulmonaria

When trimming, keep in mind that this is a matched set of “bookends,” so they should be exact, mirror image duplicates of each other as much as possible. I would think of the trimming project as a challenge … as if you were involved in a manufacturing process making a machine project on a lathe or something along those lines. It would not be at all detrimental to use a tape measure to double check dimensions for matching throughout the process. I would rough out the shapes of both before fine tuning either. The place to begin is standing back well away from them trying to envision what they are to become. If the shrub needs to be moved a little left, right or forward, this is the time to notice it and account for the adjustments you’ll need to make in the cutting. It really barely matters where the plant roots are located. If you the shrub to be 4” to the right, “move” it there with the cutting process. It’s important to envision the finished product before cutting because there is a substantial part of them that won’t get any cutting at all. If you just charged up on them and started hacking away, there’s a good chance you’d cut some wrong parts off. Since the pair of shrubs are matched, the first cuts to make should determine the height. (To match the pair, follow a line on the siding of the house as a guide. Don’t measure from the ground.) Keep in mind that you do NOT want to cut at the place where you envision the limits of the finished product to be (the red line in picture.) There are three reasons for this. As soon as you finish cutting the plant it’s going to grow and if you cut it at the finished height, in a short time it will grow too large. The second reason is because, even though you tried hard to make it a perfect shape, it’s not going to end up as perfect as you’d hoped for. Later, when you need to trim and try to perfect it again, you will want to be cutting only in the newer, softer, easier-to-cut foliage, rather than in the hard, sticky, woody portion. If you don’t cut a little smaller in the first place, you’ll probably end up where the next cutting has to dip somewhere into the woody portion of the plant again. This is a royal pain. If you make the plant a little smaller to begin with, it gives you a “cushion” against having this happen. In general, I find that people have a strong resistance to cutting the plant smaller (the blue line in the picture.) But do yourself a favor and get over this. If you mistakenly cut this plant to a stub, in two years you’d barely remember your error because it would be pretty large again. In cutting it just 6” less than you want it to be, in two months you’ll barely remember or notice that you did that. The third reason you want to cut the plant a little smaller than the “finished product size” is because the more foliage you remove from the top portion of the plant, the greater it is that you expose the bottom portion (the part that is undercut and desperately needs to grow) to more light and an improved chance of quicker growth. Between the yellow line (which represents the ground plane) in the picture and the shrub, there is nothing at all to cut … until you get higher up to the blue line. At this cavity at the lower portion of the shrubs, all the foliage will be left untouched so it can continue to grow as quickly as possible. The goal is to keep the upper portions of the shrub trimmed so that it shades the lower portions the least as possible. Even if you want the shrubs to be larger than what I'm showing, for now you should trim them as I'm showing because you're in a corrective phase trying to regain the lost lower foliage. In your second-to-last picture, it shows how a subordinate, adjacent shrub has encroached on the Yew, which is clearly the more important shrub. The lesser shrub should be trimmed such that this doesn't happen.