Two great favorites. Cornus sericea comes in a variety of ultimate height, Winter stem color and plain or variagated leaves. Lowes or Hm. Dpt. usually only offer the commonest but quite beautiful bright red sort. Blue rug has been, for me, a totally dependable ground cover in sun. Slowly spreading, generally weed ommitting and, I think, beautiful in every season. One, I have here, gets only a half day of sun,if that,and has not changed to the greyish lavendar or purple but kept its dark green this Winter, and seems to be thriving. Another, I put at a rental property, got zero attention and thrived with only rain and full day sun.

hey lils ... you have popped onto the GW scene.. welcome ... you have to start learning the latin ... if you want to take the quantum leap ... first.. it leaves no question as to what plant we are all talking about.. but more importantly ... its a KEYWORD ... for searching info in search engines.... when you use the common name... ALL JUNIPER INFO gets melted in ... so you end up overwhelmed by bad info ... third .. you are looking for ANNUAL GROWTH ... see link where i combined all.. and it is rated for 12 to 18 inches ... do not be confused by tags.. or statements about its eventual size ... most ESTIMATES .... are at ten years ... and for 20 years.. simply presume.. that as trees... conifers will be twice as big ... as they never really stop growing... finally ... this is a growth rate for an established plant .... and your arent ... when they finally achieve this growth rate.. they can be considered fully established.. and watering can be only in drought ... you biggest challenge.. is how to water properly.. on a hill ... insure proper water thru this whole summer.. the mulch is fantastic ... and will help greatly ... ken ps: also note.. in z5.. you have a limited growth season [winter and all that] .. as compared to warmer zones ... and that is why the answer is between 12 and 18 inches... no one can tell you what to expect in your micro climate .... beyond a general range ... Here is a link that might be useful: link

Those must have been some hungry deer!! Deer will eat junipers (and no, it doesn't kill them) but they tend not to be on the top of their menus unless there is not much else to browse or they are very hungry. White tail deer commonly browse on native junipers throughout the southwest and the Rockies and there have been numerous online reports of deer browsing more ornamental species as well. Prickliness has nothing to do with it - deer will browse all manner of conifers (including monkey puzzle or Araucaria) with very prickly or sharp needles. They do tend towards those with less terpenes however, if given a choice.

Pacific shore juniper looks nicer than blue rug, and it grows faster. My pacific shore junipers looks great year round and I've yet to have any pest or disease problems with it. It spreads at a nice pace but I haven't found it to be hard to control at all. I had about half a dozen blue rug junipers growing on a sunny slope at the front of our property and I'd swear that in all the time they were there they didn't grow an inch...very sloooow grower for me. Besides that, I found the name to be deceptive - it never really looked 'blue' when I had it. Most of the time it was a dull green mixed in with dead brown branches from spider mite infestations. That's just my own experience with the plant - maybe you'll have better luck. I finally got rid of them, and now I have a xeric bed planted in that spot.