I live in central Illinois where the winter winds blow in fiercely to batter the west side of my home. That side is the boring side of our house, or should I say "most boring side". It's planted with an arborvitae hedge. Sturdy, reliable, not very attractive, but provides a "blanket" from the cold. I've not given much thought to doing anything to what we have, not that it's great, but there are so many other fish to fry and the unknown variety of thuja accomplishes the task that I would put at the top of my list for plantings on this side of the house: It does provide insulation from the wind, it survives, it's evergreen, it takes pruning reasonably well. I have no idea how many plants are planted in this hedge. It is no doubt planted too closely together (a hedge) and too close to the house. But then, I don't have much space to play with. My neighbor's house is only about 15' feet from mine. So, my first question would be how much real estate do you want to use for this new foundation planting? Clearly, evergreens should probably play a part in your choices. I like lilacs, and they're tough once established, but their seasonal interest is limited to a few weeks of flowering. Then they are a ho hum shrub with no fall color and twigs for winter. No real screening for your western exposure. Without knowing the size of your space, it's impossible to say what you should do, but an evergreen hedge might be a starting point. If I had the space, I'd love to then feature several specimen deciduous shrubs in front of the evergreens ... physocarpus (ninebark) comes to mind, or maybe one of the vibirnum varieties, cotinus coggygria, possibly even a specimen evergreen or two. One of these or some sort of grouping featured in the foreground of an evergreen backdrop. I'm just throing ideas out here ... on the chance that something helps. Wellspring

Thanks for all the replies so far on this thread. Spruce: Somehow I knew you were going to recommend the Norway spruce! =) We have several mature NS on our property and they do well. The local farm market has several small potted (2 gallon?) NS trees on sale so I might check them out. smivies: Thanks for the ideas. We do have a couple of mature Douglas firs as well. They're fast growing for sure, but our particular specimens don't look all that great. Ours are not very dense, and you can see through them easily, so I neve really considered them as a possibility. We've never had any A. cephalonica so I'll ahve to do some research. Our white pines are quite drought tolerant but as you say, the soft wood makes for a poor windbreak. Our white pines, though beautiful, quite often drop branches during winds and storms. I'm growing several P. strobiformis from seed and they did very well this season (their first year). We'll see how they do this winter. The blue-green color is great! scotjute: Thanks for suggesting the Eastern Red Cedar. I'll take a look at that as well. We don'thave any of them so that might be interesting as well. Thanks again! We're open to suggestions =) Dave

Tree Oracle, I often see the words "less afternoon sun in southern climates" or something to that effect. So, I am wondering if I might get away with this. I suppose only time will tell. As for the watering, I don't love the idea of having to water a lot. It can be time consuming (though I love to stand and water at the end of a long gardening day with a glass of wine in hand!) and I also worry about how green that is (not). Diggin, I am sure I can find places for the heuchera. have lots of shade out back....just no beds, yet. (New construction....blech.) By the time they start to fry, I should have beds ready. :-) Ellen, the funny thing about the Iteas is that they didn't have Henry's Garnet last fall, so I let them put in Little Henry instead. Those babies will certainly be moved because they're just too small for their location. Good to know I can use Henry's Garnet there instead. Thanks!

Don't rule out western areas just because they are on the west side. All things being equal, Macs will have a harder time on west facing areas and growers may have to allocate more time to checking them but, experiment and see if you can overcome the issues with a micro-climate. I have only planted a Mac on the west side once; it was a Sun Goddess Mac with 1-2 hrs of sun exposure, I made sure the soil drained well and that I watered often; it did fine with the west wall on one side and a pine bush on the opposite side. And my MIL had a nice blue Nikko Blue by her west-facing NH bedroom window that had morning shade and afternoon sun so, wow, go figure that! Whenever I visited her in July-August, it seemed to get sun until sometime after her dinner time but of course, her sun was nowhere as strong as it is down here. You know, I never inquired what did she do for that NB (watering, winter etc)... But you can always look at other Mac's in your area to see how they are placed and 'test the waters' by growing the mac in a pot until you feel certain that the selected location will work... then plant it in the ground. Monitor the shrub and the soil moisture more often in the summer. If the first location does not work, just move the pot. Bombshell (which has had a lot of complaints with blooming issues here), Wedding Gown and Pearls 'n Pink are some of the most compact paniculatas that I suggest you could try. Of course, they only "do" white/pink blooms, not blues/purples/pinks like Macs. If you still want to try macs in full sun, try anyways (maybe just one shrub at first) and post comments to see how does it go.