hoover(is that where you're at?), Aronia is a 'northern' plant - may do OK in N.AL, but it may not like the heat - though I've seen 'em growing OK in central KY, and the summers there are pretty hot & steamy, too. Personally, I wasn't too impressed with the taste of the chokeberries I've sampled - underwhelmed enough so that I wouldn't plant 'em for the berries, though I have seen photos of great red fall leaf color on 'em. Check out this GW thread on them Here is a link that might be useful: Tasty Aronia?

TFitz, when you say "gas meter," that's what I think you're talking about. The higher meter is electric. Sky Pencil Holly is a possibility. Regardless of what you plant, it would be good to paint the conduits, box and wires white in the meanwhile so it doesn't stand out as much. Be careful of planting something that will grow too large or fast or you'll end up regretting it.

No "great" updates, honestly. I did trim it down a lot earlier this year, and it definitely looks better for it! Now that I know it's OK with it, I'll do a better job of trimming this winter. Since posting this, my mom passed, my dad got COVID which led to end stage pulmonary fibrosis, and one of my dogs passed... so it's been a rough year :-( Obviously I haven't had the time, energy, or money to focus on the gardens like I wanted. I have 2 sunshine ligustrum in another section of the landscape, though, and I'm kinda thinking about pruning them and then planting the cuttings all around the front of the butterfly bush (leaving the back open so that I can get in and prune the butterfly bush easily). That wouldn't cost anything, they're drought-tolerant so I wouldn't have to worry about watering them after the first year, and the evergreen yellow would offset the purple colors well. I had to Google the vitex... wow, that's going to be gorgeous! I'm going to have to look in to that, I'd never heard of it :-O

@ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5 - thank you so much for your quick response. I find in my neighborhood that people have a lot of hedges & arborvitaes and deciduous shrubs, which is exactly what I tore out. Or, they use a lot of azalea's, which I love but fear would last about a week with the deer in my yard. That said, I've attached some photos of homes that I saved on my gizmo that struck my fancy. I like round, symmetrical (some might save "typical" or "boring"), but I'm not afraid to try fun stuff. I just think in the front of the house, the less is more approach would be better for me. (I'm very "type-A" and I accidentally killed an indoor bamboo plant, if that's any indication to my style and skill set. :) PS - I agree with the Holly tree. I don't think it's very happy there. PPS - I think the house is considered a traditional colonial...pretty typical for the NE suburbs.