I can't figure out what your goals are for this area. Do you want to screen the chairs from view? Curb appeal and interest from inside. I do not care about screening chairs from view. In fact, I do not want anything so tall and wide that we wouldn't be able to look out when sitting on our porch. You said you replanted, what is there now? You will be surprised how tall Joe-Pye weed gets. It looks great with feather reed grass, coneflower and sedum. All of these perennials have good winter interest, and can take snow load. But unless you add some shrubs for structure, these may not be the best choices. I'm not sure how the maple relates to this planting area. I think you might be happier if you widen the bed to include the maple and use groups of three to five shrubs to fill in the space between. That little evergreen could use a couple of buddies, going out towards the spruce. I would love to see more repetition (small plants repeated in groups)and structure from the shrubs, instead of one of this and one of that. "That little evergreen" will eventually meet her demise too. It's a dwarf Alberta Spruce and it gets terrible tip burn. I'll be replacing her within a few seasons I'm sure. Most of my neighbors have already taken theirs out. The raised bed has a mixed bag of tricks.... Iris, Turtlehead, 2 sedum, a pinks, japanese hakone grass, joe pye weed, Tiger Eye Sumac and a couple other perennials. I knew they'd get crowded last year so I planned to thin them out this year. I am considering widening the bed to include the maple too. Maybe in 2011. I don't want to set myself up to only half-ass these projects. And hubby hates it when I start killing grass for planting beds.... I have to choose my battle there!... that battle is probably better fought next year! As of today, if I HAD to choose what to put in that spot, I would probably choose Silver Feather Maiden Grass. I have a 3-year old clump in my back garden that I was thinking of moving anyway, so I'm giving some very serious thought to that proposition. And then there is still the option of a structure of some sort. I'm going to shop around a bit to see what there might be. I love Ken's idea of an armillary sphere. We have a few of them in the house as bookshelf art. And we have an armillary style sundial in our back garden. I bought it for him on our honeymoon! I've been giving a lot of thought to paying for a designer to draw up a plan for our front yard. I know I need to remove the rock... I can't imagine how many tons of rock the previous owners had delivered to this house.... too bad it's rock mulch and not boulders. In some places, it's 8" or more thick. But, the good news is that with the heavy duty landscape plastic that was used, we RARELY have weeds. The bad news is that once I take all that up, the soil is going to not have touched oxygen for 8-9 years. Ugh.

If you went with a medium grower, the spread would be alright for that space. Crape myrtle blooms on new wood only. That is why many people insist on pruning the myrtle in the fall, cutting the branches back so that when it grows again the next year, it will bloom on the new growth and not outgrow the space. Crape myrtles live very comfortably in very little root space. That is why they are planted in parking lots and next to side walks quite often, they can put up with alot of abuse, and still flourish. The medium size one I bought was very little, and it will take quite a few years for it to get to the 8-10 foot size that was on the container, but when it does get too high, or in your case, the spread oversteps your bounds, you can just cut it back good in the fall, when all the leaves fall off. There are quite a few web sites on the internet that have the different varieties and their characterstics but I found to buy them when they are blooming is the way to go. That way, you will see exactly what the flower looks like so you are satisfied with the color. Usually private nurseries will have a nice selection, and hopefully, they would have hired someone you can speak with about the size. The real small dwarf crapes are also gorgeous. THey don't grow too tall at all, take up less space and grow nice together, so that is also a nice alternative. They are small though, but the space you have is more than adequet for a couple or three of them, and you can mix them up if you want. Mabey a purple, a pink and a white. I'm talking about the real small ones, they don't grow very big at all. But they will flower if they are planted in rich soil and fertilized every year. Mabey put a cute little staute of something in front of them.

NWalton, I am not sure where you are in zone 6, but if you are in New England you may find what I did useful as far as plant ideas, though mine isn't a formal hedge made of one kind of plants as you may want. Before I started this project in fall 2009, I think, I tried to web search mixed shrub borders and didn't find much that inspired me. But I knew I had seen in person similar things planted various places, so I had some ideas in mind and then just winged it. My goals were to block or distract from some of the sightlines to a work area from the main entrance drive, but not to exceed 20'-25' in height. We had just cleared a wooded area to have more sun, so I was starting from a blank slate. I knew I wanted a mix of evergreens (for winter interest) and deciduous shrubs, vines and perennials for colorful and contrasting foliage and flowers. I know I have more space than the typical suburban yard, but something similar to this could be done on a scaled down basis. Mine is probably about 15' deep on average x something like 60' long. The first photo below is in June of 2010 after planting fall 2009. 3 kinds of evergreens (2 or 3 of each randomly spread down the bed length - Thuja 'Sunkist', Thuja 'Techny' and a slower growing cultivar of blue spruce, 'Fat Albert', that I will probably eventually have to remove due to large size or budworm damage), a few small pagoda dogwoods, a couple of Hydrangea paniculata (Quickfire and Pinky Winky), a Coppertina Ninebark, two Spicebush (Lindera benzoin), a half dozen rhododendrons, some winterberry holly, and a few perennials. Before planting, I laid down a bunch of composted manure. After planting the various shrubs, I mulched heavily for moisture and weed control, first putting down cardboard and then about 6" of loose mulch that packed down to 4" or so. Perennials were planted around the edges after the main shrubs were in by cutting through the cardboard. I tried to leave enough room between the evergreens and shrubs to allow them to just grow together over time, but not be super crowded, so it was rather sparse the first year or two. I didn't do formal plans, but knew the ballpark size of the mature shrubs and the bed size, and once I bought the plants, I plopped them down in the bed and moved them around until I liked the layout, and then got out the shovel. I didn't pick out specific varieties ahead of time, but went around to local nurseries during fall sales knowing that I wanted rhodies, varied colored medium evergreens, etc. and chose from what they had available (that met my needs) to keep expenses down. Looking east from the middle Looking NE from the SW side (June 2010) In December of 2010 after one full growing season looking west from the dirt pile just visible on the right (east) side of the photos above After 4 growing seasons with some added perennials but not much in the way of added shrubs it is fairly full. Late October 2013 June 2014 looking East along the front of the bed. Looking down the back side as fall color is just beginning to develop - no perennials since this is the work area side. Here's a photo in taken late November 2014 that was from a similar angle to the second photo at the top. There have been a few plants over the years that haven't worked out due mostly to the voles that are a curse of my gardening existence, but for the most part I am quite happy with the bed. It's at my husband's shop so I don't get down to it as regularly as I might wish, but it doesn't need more than a few of hours of weeding per season and some tidying up and cutting back some time between the fall and the start of growth in spring as long as I keep the mulch in good shape. I add more mulch every couple of years where there is space between plants. I've also added edging, a combination of the rolled edge black plastic edging from a big box store and recycled bricks lining the inside edge of the plastic (visible 2 and 3 photos up) to run the lawn mower wheels on so no edge whacking needed. As far as the plants you've mentioned so far: Pinky Winky is a big plant. Mine is 8' tall x 12' wide at about 8 years. Great flowers. I also have Quickfire which is about 6' in all directions at the same age and blooms starting a month earlier. Look at other Hydrangea paniculata varieties as well to find ones that fit your size wishes, bloom season and style, and branch stiffness (some weep a bit due to bloom weight.) Fagus "Rohanii' is a plant I see as a feature, not part of a border or mixed planting. Gorgeous but huge, and as Floral mentioned, not much grows under a mature beech. Native white pine (Pinus strobus) are large messy trees that aren't necessarily handsome with age since when open grown they often have multiple trunks and they exceed your 30'-40' height. They tend to be messy, dropping pitch on anything nearby and losing large branches in storms that have heavy snow or ice. I don't think I'd plant them in a suburban yard, though they make up a significant part of the woodlands on this old farm.

Still, I can't see large shrubs looking good growing up into the canopy of the birch. Making a stab at the arbor idea, it goes without saying that the drawing is full of flaws. I hope it's comprehensible. The gate looks short because I didn't want to cover the white arrow, which represents the path of travel. It's a 4-legged rectangular footprint, but only the outside facing side has a trellis. It and the roof are covered in "vines". The inside facing side (toward the deck) is open. If it wasn't open the structure would seem a bit like a tunnel. Instead, it's like an shed open on 3 sides. The trellis side is set into the yard a bit more than the fence to allow for overhanging foliage growing toward the outside and toward the neighbor's yard. I would keep the pass-through width of an arbor no less than 5'. 6' would be fine, too. The length is dependent on the length of screening (trellis) desired. (Trellis is "wall" vertical plane. Arbor is "ceiling/roof" horizontal plane.) This scheme keeps most (90% ....?) of the original "floor" space. I would make the posts 6" x 6", not 4" x 4". Post in the lawn would need to be made highly visible ... which means I would paint the whole thing a light color that stood out as a feature, rather than blend into the fence scene. (I did not show it as I would do it. Actually, I would pave the floor of the arbor either with concrete or bricks/pavers. It would not necessarily need to match any other paving in the yard.) Annual vines like moonflower vine cover completely in a matter of weeks. The trick is to start a permanent vine that takes longer to grow, but will be there every year. A Jackmanii clematis would be awesome.