Linlily, I think it's a combination of genetics (some are hardier than others) and protection. I find that when we get early snow before it's really cold, marginal plants here, including butterfly bush, seem to do better than if it gets really cold before snow. A lot of my plants rely on having snow for winter survival. I don't usually mulch specifically for protection in winter, but all my beds have some mulch, and I leave stems on many plants to hold leaves for self-mulching.

When trimming, keep in mind that this is a matched set of “bookends,” so they should be exact, mirror image duplicates of each other as much as possible. I would think of the trimming project as a challenge … as if you were involved in a manufacturing process making a machine project on a lathe or something along those lines. It would not be at all detrimental to use a tape measure to double check dimensions for matching throughout the process. I would rough out the shapes of both before fine tuning either. The place to begin is standing back well away from them trying to envision what they are to become. If the shrub needs to be moved a little left, right or forward, this is the time to notice it and account for the adjustments you’ll need to make in the cutting. It really barely matters where the plant roots are located. If you the shrub to be 4” to the right, “move” it there with the cutting process. It’s important to envision the finished product before cutting because there is a substantial part of them that won’t get any cutting at all. If you just charged up on them and started hacking away, there’s a good chance you’d cut some wrong parts off. Since the pair of shrubs are matched, the first cuts to make should determine the height. (To match the pair, follow a line on the siding of the house as a guide. Don’t measure from the ground.) Keep in mind that you do NOT want to cut at the place where you envision the limits of the finished product to be (the red line in picture.) There are three reasons for this. As soon as you finish cutting the plant it’s going to grow and if you cut it at the finished height, in a short time it will grow too large. The second reason is because, even though you tried hard to make it a perfect shape, it’s not going to end up as perfect as you’d hoped for. Later, when you need to trim and try to perfect it again, you will want to be cutting only in the newer, softer, easier-to-cut foliage, rather than in the hard, sticky, woody portion. If you don’t cut a little smaller in the first place, you’ll probably end up where the next cutting has to dip somewhere into the woody portion of the plant again. This is a royal pain. If you make the plant a little smaller to begin with, it gives you a “cushion” against having this happen. In general, I find that people have a strong resistance to cutting the plant smaller (the blue line in the picture.) But do yourself a favor and get over this. If you mistakenly cut this plant to a stub, in two years you’d barely remember your error because it would be pretty large again. In cutting it just 6” less than you want it to be, in two months you’ll barely remember or notice that you did that. The third reason you want to cut the plant a little smaller than the “finished product size” is because the more foliage you remove from the top portion of the plant, the greater it is that you expose the bottom portion (the part that is undercut and desperately needs to grow) to more light and an improved chance of quicker growth. Between the yellow line (which represents the ground plane) in the picture and the shrub, there is nothing at all to cut … until you get higher up to the blue line. At this cavity at the lower portion of the shrubs, all the foliage will be left untouched so it can continue to grow as quickly as possible. The goal is to keep the upper portions of the shrub trimmed so that it shades the lower portions the least as possible. Even if you want the shrubs to be larger than what I'm showing, for now you should trim them as I'm showing because you're in a corrective phase trying to regain the lost lower foliage. In your second-to-last picture, it shows how a subordinate, adjacent shrub has encroached on the Yew, which is clearly the more important shrub. The lesser shrub should be trimmed such that this doesn't happen.

Glad you like the pictures, folks! I consider the north and east sides of my house (east side being shaded by us and the neighboring house) to be a virtual zone 4, so I've only been very successful planting roses hardy to those zones in either location. Obviously this involves a lot of Easy Elegance, Kordes, and Explorer roses, at least in my case, and quite a few Austins and Meilland roses are doing fine in those locations too. They're both also part shade locations, particularly the east side, so they might not bloom as much as elsewhere. So, since I have my location list open here, I'll list what's on the north side of my house, some of which you can see in the yew photos. This also happens to be one of the few beds I try to limit the colors, so there's an emphasis on white, apricot and burgundy (go figure - the latter two colors of course are harder to find in hardy roses): Easy Elegance (many of these are planted in multiples): All the Rage, Calypso, Coral Cove, Snowdrift, Sweet Fragrance - these are totally reliable bloomers in this spot all summer Kordes: Coco, Floral Fairy Tale, LavaGlut, Mandarin Ice, Mango Veranda, Queen of Hearts Freelander, Summer Memories,- also all very reliable bloomers except maybe Coco who's only occasional Austins: Carding Mill, Lady of Shalott, Queen Nefertiti, Susan Williams-Ellis, Tamora Meilland: Abbaye de Cluny, Alba Meidiland, Bolero, Coral Drift, Coral Meidiland, Passionate Kisses, Peach Drift, Canadians/Explorers: Campfire, Quadra (a lot more Explorers on the East side) - trouble free and easy bloomers all season both Other shrubs: Carefree Celebration (Radler), Elizabeth Stuart (Massad), Gentle Persuasion (Buck), Imagine (Clements), Lady Elsie May (Noack), Marylene (Interplant), Milwaukee's Calatrava (Tadler), OSO Easy Mango Salsa (Warner), Paloma Blanca (Buck), Prairie Sunrise (Buck) - except for GP, MC and OSO Easy all of these have been in this spot for 6-8 years and are reliable round the season Other: Jack's Wish (a Kirkham HT rose that's in my top 10 roses of all time - Long Ago roses is propagating from my cuttings - you NEED this rose), Peach Delight (miniflora, only OK here), Pink Abundance (Harkness - by far the weakest in this location), White Gold (Cocker floribunda that does rather nicely) Hope that helps. Cynthia

Emily: I didn't chime in on your thread as I was hoping you'd also read through the discussion [Are butterfly bushes really that hard to keep around?[(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/are-butterfly-bushes-really-that-hard-to-keep-around-dsvw-vd~5321583) My purple one is hanging in there, but with many tiny leaves and hardly any blooms, it's testing my patience. (The white one next to it is doing much better.) I just came home with a beautiful purple Duranta that a monarch was going nuts over: It's very hardy for my area (zone 9 - Houston, TX), so I've got fingers crossed. Perhaps this is something you can look into for hardiness in your area. Everything at what we call the big box nursery out here is 1/2 off, so I thought I'd give it a shot. Good luck.