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token28001

Favorite flowering shrub

token28001
15 years ago

I need some infill plants for the back yard. I've got plenty of room, one side full sun, the other side mostly shady. The soil is acidic, clay held together with stones and rocks. However, the areas I am working in have been covered for years with fallen leaves and other organic matter. The dirt looks really good about 1' down and I can amend as needed.

So, what I want are shrubs that will grow in the Zone 7 part of NC with little maintenance and care once established. I will have a few perennial beds scattered throughout. I just need the shrubs. I'd like to choose things that flower or have a great smell for different seasons.

Right now I have Forsythia, azaleas, Tea Olive (smell to die for), August Beauty Gardenia (just finished reading the thread on Gardenia Suicide), Wine & Roses Weigela, Sweet Shrub, and euyonomus for evergreen color (variegated and solid). I just purchased a pink poppet weigela and plan to put it back there. It was a clearance item. I can get more. :) )

There is a groundcover mix of Ivy, periwinkle, and some thorny vine that even roundup won't kill. The rest if pretty much leaf cover and stumps.

The trees back there are Southern Magnolias (spaced evenly throughout in the 1950s), White Dog woods (left corner in full sun), and very old oaks (all throughout). There is one Red Crape Myrtle in the center of the arc I'm trying to encircle. There is also one Eastern Redbud just to the left of it. I will be trying to propagate lavender/light pink crape myrtles, Eastern Redbud, Golden Rain Tree, and some Japanese Maple to fill in some gaps in the trees. If all else fails, I will purchase more mature ones.

With all that, what are some good flowering or fragrant shrubs that I can use in this area? It's about 150' of tree line that I want to create a natural boundary around.

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