We have rugosa (own root) roses on a south facing flower bed next to our porch. I plan to put day lilies between the roses and close enough to the porch to escape most of the drips. I have some ornamental strawberries that would make good groundcover. Any other suggestions for something short and tough? I've used rhubarb successfully under drip lines but it is too tall for this application. We prefer drip lines rather than guttering because of snow slide off during the winter. Thanks so much for your help! Daryl

I put in a Azek composite deck about 4 years ago on the south side of our house. It gets baked by the sun and we have had no issues with the deck. I am very glad we went with composite. The only issue we are having is some screws are rusting and I think it is we got a bad batch of screws, not a deck issue. We ordered the decking from a company in Tx I had it shipped and had no problems. I got all my info from searching this site for a couple of months. I can't remember the company we bought from but if you search old posts you may find it.

Be sure to pick plants that will stay within scale of the planting area (primary issue with the current plantings). Many bigleaf hydrangeas like Nikko or ES get huge here in the PNW (6-8' tall and wide) and a need to prune them to keep size in check will limit the flowering. Also afternoon sun exposure in that location is likely to be far too strong and result in daily wilting. You might want to look into some of the more compact or dwarf forms of Hydrangea paniculata, which can take full sun and can be pruned to size (if necessary) without affecting any flowering potential. Even if only viewed from indoors during our rainy season, I would still want to see something evergreen in that bed....otherwise you will just have bare dirt for a good 4-6 months and that means weeds :-) We are not limited in the variety of smaller evergreen plants available in this area so I would visit a local nursery to see what's on offer that you might like - euphorbias, candytuft, hebes, dwarf abelia or pieris. Even a groundcover or a carex or two.

Where is the home located? If it is covered and will not be exposed to direct radiant energy from the sun, the necessity of something in the 3-coat Low-e range (i.e. Cardinal Low-e 366) goes away. You still do want a Low-e to assist with heat flow in either direction, i.e. saving energy in the winter as well, but you can certainly go with a Low-e 2 range or even higher VT rated coating. https://www.cardinalcorp.com/technology/reference/loe-performance-stats/