PJM rhoddy has red/burgandy leaves fall through winter & retains about 3/4 of its foliage over winter. It will, at maturity, reach about 4-5' tall & wide. They are just finishing bloom in my Zone 6(b) 7(a) garden. PJM thrives in an exposed location tossing off hot sun, cold, brutal winds, snow, & heavy downpours. They have the constitution of a musk ox. Their two wants are acid soil & organic moisture retentive soil. Rhoddies/azaleas are shallow rooted so they don't handle dry soil well. They are sold as a small-leaved rhoddy. Tricia

Thank you all for your responses. I've been researching the info you've given me, but am now more uncertain than before. Since there are so many kinds of viburnums, and since there's such variation in leaves, blooms, size, etc., I've decided to do nothing for 2 of the locations this year. Instead, I will go to a nursery every month that carries about a dozen varieties and observe how the leaves look. In the spring, I'll try to determine which ones bloom or leaf out the earliest. I'm going to take notes, since I keep forgetting which is which! I did decide to get another Canadian hemlock for one of the locations. The location by the wetlands seems to already have some viburnums that are gradually filling in the area I'd wanted to plant, so time may solve this problem, at least for during the summer. Another location seems to be filling in with serviceberries. We've been so busy building the house and getting rid of unwanted trees, that I'd been ignoring the underbrush, thinking it was all black cherry seedlings, which we have a gazillion of. So I'll keep looking at the viburnums until next spring and then decide the other 2. BTW, I found a couple of websites that list a lot of good info about some viburnums. The U of Illinois site has pictures. The Ohio State site also tells you the good and the bad of each viburnum! I don't know how to list 2 links, so here's the U of Illinois one--http://www.urbanext.uiuc.edu/shrubselector/search.cfm Anne Here is a link that might be useful: OSU link to plant facts, including shrubs

Spruce can be pruned into a hedge. If you go with colorado spruce get a named culivar. The color varies enormously. A hedge made from genetically diverse specimens will look blotchy and sick. I've heard that larch, and white pine can both be pruned into hedges. If you have room for a double hedge, plant two rows of shrub type willows. Get two varieties that have contrasting winter stem color. On alternate years you cut one row to the ground in early spring. This keeps them producing lots of colorful stems. If you are worried about willow roots invasiveness, you could use one of the dogwoods, or get willows that are water lovers, sculpt a swale into the spot where you will ahve the hedge, and flod irrigate it. I would expect that the willows would keep their roots wehre the water is.

I've grown blue girl/blue boy holly for a few years quite successfully. In fall I mulch some snow around the base and then carefully place a box over top. Basically by mid-winter they are in a snowdrift surrounded by snow. The plants have produced a few berries but their rate of growth has been slow but steady. So, at least here, they are maybe 18 inches tall after 4 years. Green Mountain boxwood survived fine for me (though in spot right in front of a low deck which gets completely buried in snow for winter). I removed it only because my puppy was going through a "chew everything phase". Yucca filementosa seems to come through winter fine, then severely burn after the snow melts. I guess the sun is strong but the ground is still frozen. Still, I think of this as a hard to kill plant that repairs itself each year, and by July looks fairly decent. Vinca minor 'illumination' survived a few years in a sheltered spot before dying. Still, I am trying again. Maybe it was one of those "cold snap without adequate snow cover" things in early winter or early spring. A perennial that has leaves that stay green all winter is bergenia cordifolia (at least where it gets good snowcover). One spring someone asked me if I just planted it because the entire flower bed was bare or all the plants were brown and dried up but here was this bright green plant looking great. Glen