I thought of you & George when I read the cpg's post ... I knew you both have 1 or the other or both. I enlarged my sunny long island w/ intentions of adding a couple of JBs, after a short discussion we had last season on the wonders of JB - just my luck! Â:( ... Several of us have lost respect for *Blooms of Bressingham* ... DNA may be the same but there's enough habit diff!!! I got R but refuse to put them in my sunny Long Island bed!!! I'm putting Orkney Cherry instead! Oh sorry for the swerve ... just venting disappointment! BTW I planted *Tickled Pink-H paniculata* in the smack Center of now 25.5'x9.5' sunny Long Is bed!!! can't wait to see blossoms - no buds yet!

mjsavage, you are very welcome! I really am not sure if my Zone 3 garden will ever look as nice as my Zone 5 garden... but we shall see! :-) Let me see if I have photos to share. I just switched PC so I need to find those photos again! Ha! luis_pr, oh my goodness.... the challenges of Zone 3 gardening are multiple. First, you have such a small variety of plants, so you are very limited as to what you can choose to create that "palette" of colours and textures.... then the growing season is so short (late May through September and that's it!!! Yikes....) that many plants just do not have enough time to mature during that season to bloom well, especially those late bloomers. For instance, by early September, we get pretty cool here already, and then by late September, there may be frost! So those late blooming perennials or flowering shrubs will never reach the point that they will be seen blooming, even though they may officially survive the Zone 3 temperature! Anyway, as a result of all of these challenges, most of the plants and trees are much smaller here. For instance, the Limelight in my Zone 5 yard grew to 6 feet tall in just a few years, but I doubt that I would ever see a Limelight that size here! Probably just 4 feet or so, I guess.... BTW, that's why Quick Fire is good here as it blooms earlier than the other paniculatas but even the other paniculatas may bloom a bit too late here.... SIGH! BTW, we don't really have any spring here - it kinda just went straight from a mild winter to summer in late June! So none of the spectacular blooms here. Probably the best colours are provided by the bulbs and that's about it. And then we need to stop fertilizing roses by late August, in order to avoid much growth in September just to let the poor thing harden up for winter!!! Isn't that just so different!? Oh, and forget about tea roses here.... another big SIGH! Oh, and one other thing that I have already learned just after being here for 4 years - even though these "Zone 3 plants" may survive one winter, it does not guarantee that they may survive the next one! It is always exciting and sad to see which plants make it through and which ones did not make it through winter. Oh dear, the more I talk about this, the more I miss my Zone 5 garden! Yup, luis, NO macrophyllas here! Even though Endless Summer has been shown to survive here (most of it probably dies back to the ground) but then it takes so much time and energy to grow that it will probably not bloom until August, by then you are almost preparing for winter.... SEE WHAT I MEAN!? Mind you, they do sell lots of Zone 4 and 5 plants here though. I miss my macrophyllas that I decided to grow one in a big pot last year! It overwintered quite well in the insulated but unheated garage, and it's already sending up shoots with new leaves now! I am now allowing it to sit outside during the day, and then put it back into the garage overnight. Hopefully, this will do well! I am so excited!!! :-) OK, I have been rambling.... LOL! KarenPA - as for the size of this bed, it was a pretty decent size but not big enough! LOL! Anyway, just so that you can make sense of it, the Limelight in 2009 was probably about 5 feet tall and wide. So that should give you some idea as to how big the overall bed is. Alright, before I go to bed, I forgot to tell you guys that I have the following hydrangeas in my Zone 3 backyard now: 1. Quick Fire 2. Pinky Winky 3. Vanilla Strawberry 4. Little Lime 5. Pee Gee (OK, these are really in my front yard LOL) I had a paniculata that did not make it here so I had to yank it out!!! YIKES! Oh my, what was its name??? I am having a little confusion moment here so I will let you know once I remember what it's called! LOL! Good night, everyone!

G'morn'g pegnj - My side-by-side QF & Lil Lamb are 4' apart, in 4yrs they are hugging each other comfortably, if planted as hedge ... I judged by plant size printed on the tags. If you want to enjoy/show as individual specimens, perhaps allow room to be able to view all around. I plan to hard prune Lil Lamb in Spring (a rambunctious bunch!) ... QF is a more disciplined lady!!! PD will be wider for sure - mine is only 2y/o & already getting, as George (Ego45) predicts!!! Happy planting!!!

Little Bas (only one s) if you want to look for it - I got mine from Brushwood nursery, mail order. I think for me there have been a few keys for success: - size the shrub and the clematis well - a large vigorous clematis will smother a shrub that isn't a really vigorous grower with a head start, while shorter clematis, or ones with longer internodes will be easier on the shrubs. - stiff branches are important on the shrub, so that the clematis doesn't pull the shrub out of shape. I may have taken a few more photos this year. I'll look, but it may be a few days since my home internet is down.