i surely know nothing about BC ... so whatever i suggest is for others to opine whether they will work ...

how about a weeping larch ... deciduous for winter interest ... and very easily pruned to fit it in ...

you already have a lot of plants.. i see a few trees and conifers.. are you really sure you have space for much of anything ... perhaps giving it a year or two.. to fill in.. will better define what you have room for ...

ken

I'd have to agree with ken - the area already seems to have quite a bit of existing plantings. If you want to add more conifers, I'd look to dwarf forms, of which there are literally a skazillion to choose from. And there's not really much you couldn't plant in the Vancouver, BC area - pretty much ANY conifer species will work, outside of the tropicals :-))

Probably avoid Picea pungens and Abies pinsapo cultivars but otherwise the advice above sounds right to me!

Is anything being moved around, in the current setup, I don't see to many spots. What I do see, is a lot of real estate on the rocks for weeping/crawling conifers. You could grow something like Picea abies 'Gold Drift' as a ground cover to break up some of the hardscape, or any Juniperus horizontalis cultivars like 'Mother Lode' or 'Blue Chip'. Other ideas for low grow Cedrus deodara 'Feelin Blue'

For the small spots there are endless options in all the different colors. I'd add in a few Abies koreana 'Kohout's Ice Breaker', Abies procera 'Blaue Hexe', Cephalotaxus harringtonia 'Gold Splash'... The list goes on and on.. just mix different shapes, colors, textures, and it will look great.

Shawn

Sara, the Abies pinsapo actually does quite well here but the Picea pungens.......not so much :-) And I tell that to my clients all the time - don't know why I forgot to mention that!

I guess I didn't do such a great job with photos especially for scale. I'm heading back there now to get a few more close ups. I think I have 3 spots for sure that will fit some mighty conifers. I'm thinking things that are well behaved in the garden. It's not the widest bed. I see many of the existing shrubs getting moved around... It's actually a bad habit of mine when I start playing musical plants. My thoughts were maybe an umbrella pine? Nootkas... But I already have a few and was hoping for something really unique. Oriental spruces but I know nothing about them... Wouldn't say I'm a rookie exactly but certainly no expert :)

I like the idea of planting foreground space with weeping crawling conifers and perhaps having deciduous trees along the fence. I get really hung up on year round privacy dream... Atleast for the backyard.

Garden gal that is interesting - it's native to Spain and I STILL killed one by overwatering, even though it's a similar climate and I knew the drill.

Wow! That is a lot of work, I love the look.

Beautiful space for conifers!

A few of my favorites:

Picea Abies 'Gold Drift'

Chamaecyparis Nootkatensis 'Van Den Akker'

Chamaecyparis Nootkatensis 'Strict Weeping'

Pinus Strobus 'Angel Falls Pine'

Larix decidua 'Pendula'

Larix decidua 'Puli"

Cupressus glabra 'Raywood's Weeping'

Picea Glauca 'Pendula'

Just beautiful

Groundcovers would be a nice addition.

Abies pinsapo 'Glauca' grew to about 40 ft in my garden before the Sapsuckers killed it. I'm up in the foothills SE of Seattle and get more winter rain than Seattle. My Abies pinsapo 'aurea' is doing fine at about 12 feet and probably too young for Sapsuckers. I just wish it had more aurea to it.

Mike