I am located very close to where you live. Coral honeysuckle is not evergreen to our area. It looses all of it's leaves in the fall. I use it to climb on my chainlink fence for privacy in the spring and summer. It is great! It has beautiful flowers that attract bees and humming birds like crazy. It creates shade for you if you want it, and it grows fast. It is not invasive at all. I have 2 of them in the ground, and I mulch them in fall. I don't know about growing them in a pot, but it is worth a try. In the spring, it will get alphids when it is starting to bloom, so, go to the store and buy Rose spray and spray it real good. The alphids will all die off. You could wash it off with water from your hose, but if you want this vine near your window, you might want to spray instead. If you really want an evergreen, coral native honeysuckle is not what you want.

why dont you mail order them???? ... see link .. btw.. you are talking about conifers.. not shrubs ... anyway .... obviously.. for $3.50 you are going SMALL!!!! call girards ..... and see how much bigger they can mail and still be price efficient ... and.. keep in mind... EVERY conifer has an annual growth rate ... and most.. will continue to grow at that rate forever .... w/o researching.. i am going to guess this one is about 3 to 6 inches per year... MOST SIZE ESTIMATES ARE AT 10 YEARS .... and from 10 years on.. they will continue to grow at the annual rate ... [or... divide 3 feet (your est.) .. 36 inches by 10 years.. and your growth rate is about 3.6 inches per year .. go figure on that .. lol ] so its a matter of what size you buy them.. how well they prosper [might be questionable at a school] .. and how fast you can run away from the project.. lol ... i bet.. even with shipping.. you can mail order cheaper than buying local ... good luck ken PS: note that they have a secondary name for the plant at the link ... so search both names Here is a link that might be useful: link

Oh yes, sacrificing the flowering criteria definitely opens up a lot more possibilities! :) Helleri hollies get about that height. I just bought some hollies called "Little Rascal," and they only get about two feet high by three feet wide (supposedly...that's what they say). I fell in love with the foilage on these. It's kind of crinkly. I bought them kind of late in the spring, though, and out of three now I'm down to two. :( I probably haven't watered them enough. I hope they do better once they're established. What about arborvitae? There is a globe arborvitae that doesn't get huge, but I'm not sure it stays below three feet. I'll tell you another plant I think has some awesome cool foilage - plum yew. But I don't know the ultimate size of those either. I *think* they stay small-ish...? I've seen some in our neighborhood that are about 2-3 feet right now. But, don't know how old they are. You should go to a good nursery and look around and get them to make suggestions. Bates Nursery is good if you're north of town. If you're east, Needham's and Bagatta's. Needham's has a good Web site and Bates' Web site is even better as it lists their exact inventory. :) You could spend some time looking around on those. Bates' site links you to pictures on Monrovia for a lot of their plants. Hope that helps!

Do you have a picture of this location you are planting? My last property was full of H. paniculata and conifers. The combos are unlimited and therefore depends on the space. Little Lime is my second least favorite paniculata. I don't care what people say but this thing flopped even at the age of 8 years old. Bombshell was by far the worst. Horrible flopper and terrible flowering - and I didn't prune it. Bobo is excellent and likely is the most dwarf true to its description. Dharuma would likely be the next most dwarf cultivar. that I know of. Little Quick Fire is nice as well.