Flower is fleeting! There are some great workhorse plants, but for the most part, blooms are a nice spice that come--then go. You can design different parts of a garden to have a peak season--a month to 6 weeks where they are glorious, then fade into the background. Or you can put a bunch of workhorses in a garden and get pretty constant solid bloom from late March until September or later--but then you're relying on some spring ephemerals plus some very, very familiar perennials and annuals. For someone who clearly wants a BLOOMING border, this is often the best solution. Or you can mix in a foundation of workhorses and a number of more seasonal plants, so that you don't a riot of bloom, necessarily, but there's always something going on. This is what I tend to do. In my personal gardens, flowers are the flourish, or the spice--not even the icing, really, because they just aren't that dominant. (Most of my house is in shade, so I don't really have a choice...) For the most part, I concentrate on the FOLIAGE. Sometimes, I don't even care what color things bloom, especially in my shade gardens, because the blooms will so often be so far apart and inconspicuous compared to the foliage! I like to concentrate on 1) COLOR of foliage, not bloom. The color of foliage plays an enormous role in the rhythm of a bed. I've found that most beds can support 3 major colors. The most common colors are green (obviously)--from almost black to a light true green, chartreuse, purple (only works in shade directly against another color), silver/white, peach/red/orange, and blue. One color will be green--the other two depend on the situation! I started with a Japanese painted fern under my tree bed that I'm starting this year. Purple heurchera looks GREAT, and so do the pale-edged hostas (which are more white than gold). But the true chartreuse citronelle heuchera that I tried looks HORRIFIC, and it's going to have to make room for a more silvery heurchera to set off the purple one (purple with nothing around it disappears in shade and just looks drab). 2) The FORM of the plants--are they spiky? Mounding? Flat-topped groundcovers? Climbing? You can get a LOT of mileage out of conscious repetition and contrast, both. 4) The TEXTURE of the leaves--not the whole plant, but the individual leaves. Big, fat round leaves can be echoed in big, fat strappy leaves and contrasted against ferny leaves, etc. If you pay attention to everything BUT the flowers, you can actually get some pretty awesome results. If you pay attention to just the flowers, the result usually disappoint. My front bed I started right after I moved here. I wasn't familiar with growing ANYTHING in this region (seriously, it was the first time I ever saw blooming azaleas and hydrangeas), so I took the "buy what's on clearance, throw it in the ground, see what the deer don't eat to the ground, and learn about the plants" approach. :-) For my main curb garden, which is only 35' wide (pie-shaped lot), I wanted an informal mixed shrub border to screen the house from all the cars--and headlights--that turn around in the cul-de-sac. I was completely unfamiliar with MOST of the shrubs here at that time, so I just bought stuff that looked nice and was under $5 and looked like it'd get the right size. My rules were about form and color. I got 1/2 green (with some with chartreuse accents), 1/4 chartreuse, and 1/4 purple. I put tiny leaves next to big leaves, blobs next to spikes, and I'm still in the process of figuring out what other workhorse perennials I can fill the bare spaces with (in amongst the shrubs). Sand cherries by themselves are boring and tend to get leggy--as an accent in front of a wall of green behind a chartreuse-tinged arb, they really look great. People keep asking me what they are, and no one believes me that they're the same plants as you see all the time next to the highway. Between the *yawn* spireas, the cliched knockout rose, and the altheas, I actually do have *something in bloom all the time, pretty much by accident, but it's the colors and shapes of the foliage that are arresting. I let it go for a few years, to see how it would fill out, and now I REALLY need to do some refining at various points, but I've had tons of people in the neighborhood tell me how much they love the garden and how happy it makes them to see it at the end of the street. I've had people ask me to design things for them, and a few people have said that I should be designing professionally. (Um, NO. Not up to that! I STILL don't have a good grasp on what really does and doesn't do well here--I've tried 5 different plants in one spot on the back, and they all die or get eaten within the year--and I can't quite think as clearly in all four dimensions as I'd want to be able to before setting out a shingle. And I'm terrified of pruning most bushes wrong. But it's flattering, nevertheless.)

I'm not sure which hedges would be unpalatable to deer, but I know that they hate the smell of mothballs. I run a wholesale nursery, and we had a big problem with deer eating the plants until somebody told me about mothballs. Maybe this info will help you. I'm not really sure how you'd put out mothballs at a residence.

John from Perry County- I'm a little closer to you in Berks county. Want to come and garden with me? I've got real problems - this guys home is georgeous! My place was beautifully landsceped in the 20's and 30's but lived in since by a mountain man who let it all hang out. Machete time. I have (had) a long row of old boxwood flanking the walk. Caused me to buy the house. It began to decline. Expert #1 - Oh, it's fine. Just put some Miracaid on it and it will come right back (no charge) Expert #2 = Miracid is the worst thing you could have put on this hedge. Your box has a fungus disease. Must be sprayed and trimmed. (charge $50.00 X 2 for spraying, 150.00 for 2 college boys to hack up my hedge) Expert #3 - There is no cure for fungus. Spraying the hedge will do nothing. Took 3 leaved to look at under the microscope. Diagnosis: Your box is dying of old age. ($80.00 for the house visit) I have gotten over the fact that the hedge is no more. Trusting myself from now on and saving some money. Still need a replacement. Don't think it would be a good idea to use box, it's a major project. I only want to do it once. You seem like you have a lot of really good ideas. What do you suggest?

Having lived in a number of states "over the years," my favorites have really been trees. I agree with Lou_midlothian_tx...I'm enjoying my 'Fire Dragon' Shantung maple even though it's only in it's second year. Other favorite trees in other states have been 'Forest Pansy' redbuds and any purple-leafed ornamental cherry or plum. Also elsewhere, I was blown away with Alpine currant (MT) and its good looks and versatility. In MD, I especially liked my 'Annabelle' hydrangea. In Texas, I like salvia greggii...I think it's 'Pink Preference' that is a hot pink or magenta color and blooms its head off spring through fall. Lantana, of course. I like the greener version of Santolina too and laceleaf verbena. It's still early, but I've been impressed with my compact Andorra juniper (going into its second summer) and so-far-so-good for this spring's plantings of a compact (4-5') butterfly bush 'Adonis Blue', and 'Dynamite' crape myrtle.