Thank you everyone. With the genus I googled and found a picture like mine and I saw "sweetshrub". That's what it was called when I bought it at Bordine's Nursery in 2005. I couldn't remember the name at all. It has been really happy since the neighbor had the huge old silver maple taken out that was shading it. Now it just gets some shade (a lot less) and it's doubled in size and has lots of brown blooms this year.

in our MI ... mid march might still be snow time ... so i wouldnt be surprised if we are not a bit later ... if its a bitter winter ... keep in mind.. its not air temps ... its soil temps which are usually the trigger for spring growth ... and we are subject to ground freeze in parts of our MI ... so you MIGHT be a few weeks behind beng ... ken

This is my star jasmine. Grows like crazy after the first year or two. Wonderful fragrant flowers in the spring. It's growing on a four foot chain link fence on right. Covers it completely.

I'm a bit south of you, but in our wooded area, we have native dogwoods, native honeysuckles (NOT the Japanese honeysuckles, which are invasive), and blueberries in the sunnier areas; high bush can get up to 7'-8' tall, but you can also get half-highs like 'Northland,' which will top out closer to 4', and the straight species is a great pollinator and quite attractive just with smaller berries; low bush will be more ground cover like. American holly is a nice evergreen. Several of these are deer candy, however ... so if you have deer (which I'd be surprised if you didn't ... and yes, moose count) your new shrubs will be browsed ...