Michelle, This is coming late but if you haven't already, here are some plants that could work for you. I don't know your site or your taste but... Perhaps as an anchor, an evergreen azalea or rhododendren would work and a hydrangea to play against it? Ogon, a spirea with tiny white flowers and delicate leaves could mix in. Jacques Cartier is a small rose I grow in the shade with beautiful pink flowers and healthy blue-green foliage. A Pieris like Dorothy Wyckoff with early scented blooms draped like pearls and beautiful red buds all winter. Plus in Z7, you can grow many camellias. Also there is Mountain Laurel, with perfect flowers of pinks and whites. Then there are a few snowball viburnum like V. carlesi or a scented daphne. Kerria Japonica is good for a brighter pallete. Clematis prefer sun but will do something for you in shade. I grow a few in shade - Miss Bateman and Niobe. A very sweet early one is Markham's Pink but they are many. There are many sweet perennials to consider also. Epimedium, pulmonaria, gingers, hellebores, brunneras, sweet woodruff, cimafuga, hostas, vincas, heuchera, tiarella, begonia grandis, variegated solomon seal, variegated pachysandra. On another site, there was a very charming post of a little patch of variegated pachysandra with snowdrops blooming through it. On the same site, another gardener posted purple leaved ajuga with fall crocus blooming among it. Both were very effective. If you email me, I can send you a start in the spring of epimedium Lilafee, sweet woodruff and a white vinca called Gertrude Jekyll. Here is a link that might be useful: images of lilafee

I read #1, forced myself to the finish #2, & opted to just ask my friend how it all turned out in #3. I've never read a Harlequin book so maybe this is customary.... but the part I find disconcerting about the 50's books is this: If Christian Grey were of mediocre looks, poor to average income, we would label him as a pervert & a stalker, a man with huge control issues (not just in the sexual realm), misogynistic, very jealous, & deeply scarred emotionally. The story line jumped the shark for me when he got away with really invading her privacy & stalking behaviors. We would tell our dtrs, grand-dtrs, sisters, nieces to RUN from a man like this. But .... NO.... this man is drop dead gorgeous & has a BAZILLION $$$$$'s. Therefore, anything can be overlooked. I know the story line is a flight of fancy, but I'm not sure that culturally, we don't also buy into this type of excusing the behavior because of looks/money. How could an educated, smart woman, a virgin, who was so very unaware of her own physical beauty, seemingly with near zero sex drive prior to meeting/doing Christian zip right to nymphomania & buy into dangerous sex games with basically a stranger ... all in the blink of an eye? The implausibility of the story line was a turn off to me... even aside from the multi-orgasmic repetitiousness of ALLLLLL that sex...... No, I don't get the fascination with the "50's"...

Interesting...how will this book translate? I liked the book but I'm not sure it was good enough or interesting enough to warrant a movie. Several different story lines they could focus on...what will be the dominate thread...marriage?... infidelity?...photography?...secrets?...the nurse?...Downs Syndrome?...the girl living in his childhood home?...or that beautiful green coat that 'she' was wearing the first time he saw her in the Department Store? We will all find out on Saturday night. Thanks for the heads up. sooey

OK, Kids, I watched it almost all the way through last night. I missed one section of it...when Nora starts her affairs, after the one she had while they were on vacation, but I think I saw most of it. It was OK. They did not follow the book exactly. I was waiting to see how they worked in Pauls' Breakdown in Pittsburg. As I remember that breakdown triggered his quest/need to find his childhood home and all the sadness and squaller he grew up in. That's when he met the girl, brought her back to Lexington where she lived in his house for a while. They also left out all that jogging he did. Wasn't that how and when he died in the book...jogging? Or do I have that wrong? Anyway, I'm glad I made myself watch.