You might post in the trees/shrubs/regional-for-your-area forums. I suggest you include pictures that show the overall space and how it relates to your house or a plan sketch. Also, state the full dimensions ... ? x ?

Ok thanks.

Fagus "Rohanii' is a full sized beech tree ie potentially 40 - 60 feet. Little will grow in the shade beneath it once it gets going. Are the neighbours on board with the idea of a large tree on the property line?

I'll make sure it's off the property line by 15ft. It's only about 10ft tall and four feet wide at the moment. At about a foot a year that should be ok for awhile. It's going into a space that is empty and about 25ft from their blue spruce, which the leader is only about six feet off the property line.

New England forum has some wonderful examples of mixed tree and shrub borders.

Look up "NHbabs" the scale of her plantings may be different but she's done it the right way.

Ok thanks! Got to work on my stalking skills now. Haha.

NHBABS What a wonderful mixed shrub hedge!! April

Very beautiful! Thanks NHBabs. My wife loved your layout and after seeing those pictures I think she's more on board with what I was planning to do.

I'm located in Ohio. We have a slight deer problem, the most I've counted at one time is 14 ;-O!! So hydrangeas won't work in my situation. Learned that the hard way as our Pinky Winky is decimated to sticks each summer.

Overall, on the left side of our property line my wife would like some blue spruce. I've been hesitant with the disease striking this area. However, my wife like Fat Albert and I figure on the west side line it will stay dry enough not to be bother too much from fungal pathogens.

I have attached an aerial view of the property. Brown is where I'm thinking of removing some Bradford pears and landscaping.

I am all for removing bradford pears!

If you have deer that eat yard greenery, you don't want arborvitae/Thuja either. Ask on the conifer forum for suggestions for plants in your size range that may provide some color contrast to the 'Fat Albert'; green is fine. One advantage of this is that if the 'Fat Albert' plants aren't happy, there is another evergreen that is established and growing well.

In OH, check out your soil before you start choosing plants since OH ranges in pH from mildly acidic to somewhat alkaline, if I recall correctly. Where I grew up (Cleveland area) we could grow Rhododendrons and the deer left them alone, but deer in a particular area may be more or less fond of certain plants. You may find that setting up a light weight winter fence of black mesh netting on stout poles or a web of a couple layers deep and 3 or so layers high of high test clear fishing line may discourage the deer from winter foraging when they seem to do the most damage, particularly while the plants are small.

Check to see how ninebark/Physocarpus survive with the deer in your area (look around and ask other gardeners) as it's densely twiggy and a large fountain shape, and so makes somewhat of a screen even in the winter. The deep red or reddish gold of several varieties set off the blue spruce nicely during the growing season.

Another couple of favorites include some of the dogwoods such as Cornus kousa, C. mas, and the variegated red-twigged dogwoods.

Spicebush is a native that should be fairly deer resistant and like the Cornus mas (cornelian cherry dogwood) has tiny yellow flowers in early spring, but in addition has bright yellow fall color.

A different set of deciduous flowering plants with interesting foliage includes a few of the forsythias with gold or a couple of different types of variegation to add to the spring flowers. I don't know about deer resistance.

There are a whole lot of Viburnums with spring or early summer flowers, berries, and red fall color. I don't know about deer resisitance on these either. (We have deer but they have so much else to eat and they are wary of people, so they'd prefer to dine elsewhere mostly.)

I do have Nepeta/ catmint planted in several spots around this shrub bed, and the strong scent of the foliage may discourage the deer; I don't know.

Deer around here are relentless. Rhododendrons don't stand a chance. Arborvitae are stripped to about 4ft high. I found they won't go within feet of astilbe but that doesn't help me much for this project.

I'm trying to stay away from vibrium as my two young daughters really like blueberries and don't want them to accidentally confuse them.

We like the idea of ninebark and nepeta. Russian sage for some late summer color. Serbian fir or concolor firs might go well with the blue spruces. I'm debating a smaller full sun Japanese maple (

As for the soil test, I dropped off a sample to our local county office. They said they would get results back in about a week or two but then never got back. So I'm not sure what happened there this spring.

I think it's starting to come together! Any other suggestions?

White tailed deer visit our garden & browse. To create a privacy border, we planted a row of a lovely indigenous tree, Eastern Cedar (Juniperus virginiana) which is evergreen, tolerates weather extremes & provides habitat for wildlife. The deer nibble on the lower branches, so to fill in, we planted evergreen boxwood shrubs. We found a variety that grows about 15' high. In our garden, the deer have never eaten the boxwood. Here's some info from National Arbor Day Foundation about common boxwood that grows 20' https://www.arborday.org/trees/treeguide/TreeDetail.cfm?ItemID=797

Nwalton- check back with extension. Used to work at one and results were e-mailed from lab. Emails often messed up Results should still be on file.