Nannerbelle, I couldn't agree with you more on colors. My favorite color combinations next to the house are white, cream, blue, violet, and purple. Or, to go to the other extreme, bright orange. The first year we had beds around the house I put Tithonia in on the south side and they really looked good there. A good clear yellow like Celandine poppy looks good with Phlox divaracta, and I couldn't do without my favorite yellows in the garden, Rudbeckia fulgida, Swamp sunflower, and the Bidens that bloom everywhere in September. Laurabs, I didn't know there was a mapleleaf viburnum with yellow berries. That's interesting. I have some mapleleaf viburnum with the typical black berries, some from my FIL's yard (he has about an acre of it), and a couple purchased from the NCBG. One of my favorite shrubs for fall color, just lovely. I don't know what kind of azaleas you were thinking of getting -- below is a pic of Florida azaleas that were in front of the house before we moved it -- now they are elsewhere in the garden, as they were going to get too big. They are sweetly fragrant.

I have several of the plants and love them all. From early spring when the fresh leaves come out, they are that lime-green colour. As the season progresses, they change to yellow, orange, red. they last until the hard frost. Yes, there are suckers which are easy to control. You can pull them out or if on the grass, the lawnmower takes care of them. I want to grow more so I learned the hard way, the only time you can dig up the suckers and transplant them is when the plant is dormant. So, when all the leaves are off. If you try to transplant any other time, the sucker dies. And FYI, I live in Ontario, Canada in zone 5. Hope that helped. BTW, I grow them in beds.

My Golden Rave all have spindly ragged looking new growth, but the plants are doing great and growing huge and that's just how the new growth looks on them. The downward twisting of the branches happened to me with Jet Stars when I let the pots dry out, and after transplant shock.

ann beck 8a ruralish WA How does your soil look like, being high in iron? The top layer of my soil is black and rock hard clay, but the lowest layer is lighter color clay (orangish), and red roses do well here. Red roses like Double Delight & Munstead Wood both have a higher need for iron. I check the web, and it stated: "The most distinctive characteristic of an iron-rich soil is a ruddy orange or red color, though not all red soils are rich in iron. When the iron deposits in the soil oxidize, they turn a distinctive rust color that tints the soil red. " In early summer when the stems of cut-blooms are softer, they wilt easily if I use acidic rain. My cut-blooms always last longer in my alkaline tap water at pH 9, rather than acidic rain water. My tap water leaves whitish calcium and hard magnesium deposits on pots. We have hard well water, and our soil is high in dolomitic rocks (calcium plus magnesium). In the fall when the stems are harder, cut blooms can tolerate acidic rain water better with less wilting. Below are some recent cut blooms this Sept. 2022. Dark red are Munstead Wood, it's a constant bloomer as 8th-year own root, light pink is Princess Charlene d. Monaco (4th-year own-root), and whites are 12th-year own-root Mary Magdalene, lowest ruffled pink are Augusta Luis: The Dark Lady (red), Tchaikosky (light yellow), and Sweet Mademoiselle (salmon) are heavy bloomers this Sept. Tchaikosky is 4.5" across and Sweet M is 4". They are fertilized with biochar at pH 8.6 which supplies calcium and potassium for large blooms.