Gardenguru, Rhizo and Bahia, thanks for the input. After your posts, I did some research and it seems that even nurseries selling Cleyera and Ternstroemia lump these two plants together and confuse the names. I found a very heated GW discussion on the subject (Link below if anybody's interested. Bahia, I read your comment there.) The picture below was posted in that thread. It's a pic of the tag from a Cleyera Ternstroemia gymnanthera shrub purchased at Lowe's. I don't think the poster (zamiagarden Z9) will not mind me sharing it with you here, since I'm using the pic on the GW site. According to my Southern Living Garden Book, "In the Southeast, plants often sold as species Cleyera japonica are usually Ternstroemia gymnanthera." I Goog'd for images and still am not sure which one we planted. The pictures I found on the web were too small or too far off to compare. The shrub is not as popular as it was when all of the Red Tips, Photinia fraseri were dying with the fungus Entomosporium maculatum. Anyway, my question has been answered and I'm happy to know that it's one of the two. That's good enough for me. Thank you all for helping me out. Here is a link that might be useful: Cleyera, Ternstroemia - GW Thread

its a conifer ... there is a conifer forum.. and if you get a close up of the foliage.. you MIGHT get a ID there ... looks a lot like daubs frosted ... or as noted.. any of the many similar yellow juniper ... ID might also be hard.. if it has already been butchered.. rather than in natural shape/form ditto on size vs placement ... ken

Didn't have a picture of Oklahoma when I recommended it above, but I just took one this morning. How can anyone resist this dark, dark red beauty? Oklahoma HT Very floriferous and (so far) disease resistant. Nice overall appearance of the whole plant. It has been in my garden only since late April, but it was obviously a mature container plant when I bought it at my local garden center. Kate

Not familiar with buddleia since that would be a zone pusher for me. But I've got taxus and all of them 35-40 years old - a hedge of it outside my den and a few loners scattered about in an area I really don't do extensive gardening in or take inordinate care with. (Big yard, lots of gardening spaces.) The hedge I can keep in good check at about 3 1/2' with an electric hedge trimmer. I'm familiar with Longwood Gardens and would love to have unchecked yew, but I also love to see out the windows and use the sidewalk. Sometimes things get planted in limited space. Don't know about domesticated livestock, but the local deer herd went after the hedge two winters ago and didn't seem to suffer any ill effects. Black bird netting took care of that and they regenerated just fine. The loner specimens had a lot of dead wood that I had to take a pruning saw to maybe five years ago. Extremely little regeneration so far; they might not look like much again in my lifetime. And the roots being too gnarly for me to dig out, I threw in the towel with them and put in some Ninebarks to more or less hide them. I like the Ninebarks and they can grow nicely unchecked. I love trees, shrubs, etc. without being fanatical about it. Something goes if it's diseased, severely damaged or a threat to life and limb. If something can be judiciously pruned up/shaped up I'm more than willing to get with the program - but if you don't see the benefits of that with out of control, busted up, half dead specimens and it really bothers you, maybe it's time for them to go. Just look at a yard where years ago someone planted a cute little mugo. What was once so mounded and so perfect is now the size of the ex-planet Pluto.