what about hosta in front of the boxwoods? It has lots of variations & low maintenance. I know it's not too exciting, but is very pretty. Also, I have a clematis on the south side of our house & it does great--it's going on year 3.

Terry Duchess of Albany is planted directly on the northern side of the house here and it does terrifically well. The north side of my house still gets some direct and quite a lot of bright indirect sun even in the summer. The further north you go however, the lower the sun is in the sky even in the dead of summer so that is something someone in the far north needs to concern themselves with. Now the westerly side of my house is the one area that bakes in the summer sun and that I would avoid planting any clematis directly on. I do have clematis on the west side of the house but they are shaded somewhat by various trees of the neighbors and they are not growing directly on the brick wall itself. If they were growing on the wall, they would fry since the brick absorbs heat and radiates it even after the sun has set, creating a superheated microclimate.

Never mind.... Hubby doesn't want a trellis in that spot so I'm going to plant something else there today. But I will find other spots for Clematis -- I will! They're beautiful and very rewarding to grow.

Sue, if you want to add that info to your profile so that it shows automatically by your name, here's how: Go to Your Houzz in the upper right of every page, click Edit Profile, and on the left side click advanced settings. Well down the advanced settings page is a blank labeled Climate Zone for Garden Forums along with a link to find your zone. If you add info on your state or the nearest large city you will get even better information since zone only relates to average coldest winter temperatures. Then return to the top of the page and click Done Editing.