I have similar temperatures to you and acid, fine-sandy to loamy soil. I'm not sure if your soils will be similar in pH and texture. Some smaller fruiting & flowering trees that I like and should be fully hardy for you: Cornus alternifolia - Pagoda dogwood - Lovely spring flowers (sort of lacy, not like typical flowering dogwood), summer dark fruit with bright red stems that when ripe attracts the birds; nice, though not spectacular, fall color; beautiful winter silhouette Ilex verticillata - Winterberry holly - a deciduous holly that has bright crimson berries after the leaves fall. 'Winter Red' holds the berries the longest, according to research I've read. Be sure to plant the appropriate male in an unobtrusive place in order to get berries. Some of the smaller crabapples have lovely spring flowers and colorful autumn fruit. Some varieties will hold their fruit until early spring when they will attract many birds to gobble up the fruit: cedar waxwings, robins & grouse all have visited our tree. If disease is a problem in your area, research disease-resisitent varieties. I also love hardy hydrangeas which all have long-lasting flowers. There are H. paniculatas, like 'Pink Diamond', 'Pinky Winky', Limelight, etc. I also have 'Annabelle', an H. arborescens, and there are several other arborescens varieties. Flowers of all these are in the pale green/white/pink range, and most move from pale green through to white &/or pink. The H. macrophyllas that bloom on old and new wood like 'All Summer Beauty', 'Dooley', 'Penny Mac', and 'Endless Summer' continuously throw out new blooms from early summer until frost. Here in central NH they sometimes die back to the ground in years when it gets cold while there isn't snow cover, but they resprout and bloom on the new wood. Well mulched I think they would be fine for you, since we get as low as -22 some years, though not every year. A good resource on Hydrangeas in general is the book by Michael Dirr, though you will have to ignore a lot of plants that won't be hardy for you - maybe you can borrow it from the library. As others mentioned above, the 'Northern Lights' series of azaleas (deciduous) are hardy as well as some of the deciduous azaleas from Weston nurseries in MA. In addition to nice spring flowers some have colorful fall foliage. As noted above they need acid soil. The PJM group of small leafed evergreen rhododendrons may be hardy enough for you as well. Below I've given you a link to a discussion of clematis in the shrub border. They can be grown on obelisks or scrambling across the ground or can be guided to grow into shrubs or some combination of these growth styles. I grow type 3 clematis and trim them back in the late fall, so the obelisks provide winter interest, at least until the snow gets so deep they are no longer visible. If deer are an issue in your area, choose your evergreens carefully. Both yew and arborvitae are favorite winter deer forage around here and so are typically misshapen or even eaten down to bare stubs. Some of the smaller selections of spruce are nice and don't seem bothered by deer. There are some small or weeping hemlock selections that might suit you as well. I also have and like a couple kinds of clethra, several native viburnums (dentatum, cassinoides, and acerifolium), some old-fashioned once-blooming roses, including rugosas which have decorative hips and scent that is stunning, elderberry (Sambucus), weigela (nice flowers and some have nice leaf colors), Viburnum plicatum tomentosum (though I'm not sure this will be fully hardy for you), Physocarpus (ninebark) 'Coppertina', Aronia (chokeberry), Amelanchier (serviceberry or shadbush), some of the hardier magnolias, high bush blueberry (flowers, fruit and great fall color), lilacs, and an old-fashioned hardy forsythia. The leaves of my red-twigged variegated dogwood are pretty disease prone, so I'm not sure I'd recommend this. For additional seasonal color, I plant bulbs (especially iris reticulata, daffodils, alliums, and early species crocus) in my shrub borders as well as cranberry as a non-aggressive ground cover and several low-maintenance perennials: Siberian irises, iberis (perennial candytuft), a select few campanulas, heucheras, tiarellas, hostas, variegated solomon's seal (Polygonatum), cimicifuga AKA actea, Baptisia, and lady's mantle (Alchemilla) among others. These are all quite hardy, not fussy in my garden, have foliage that looks nice throughout the growing season, take little or no deadheading or even have decorative seed pods and won't spread viciously, either through seeds or underground. I start my shrub borders by piling several inches of compost or well-composed manure on top of the soil and plant into it and the native soil, however deep the rootballs are. After planting I mulch with several layers of newspaper topped by 3 or 4 inches of wood chip mulch, which gets renewed with lighter layers every few years as needed, keeping the mulch away from shrub trunks. I keep the beds well-edged and only have to weed for a few minutes a couple times of year. I used to dig the compost in, but this works as well or better and is lots less work! Have fun planning and planting the new border! Babs

Salvia leucantha kinda goes dormant in the winter and is best if cut to ground each spring. I'm a bit colder in winter than you and mine were sticks by Feb. I took them all out and replaced with ceanothus and dwarf bottlebrush 'little john'. Something else you might look into is bush germander teucrium fruticana. It is blooming now and the blue purple is very remarkable. I like the gray foliage something different other than green. I thin it every other year. Hummers and bees love it. I also use a lot of sweet pea bush and other salvis.

That could be why it's just dirt - nothing will grow, but this is an inner city school in a district with major budget issues, and until a few years ago, was pretty neglected over all, so it's also possible there's been no one to care for it properly. I'm just now getting involved. We have an outdoor education program funded mainly by donation and PTA help and sales (herb sales, plant sales), so funds are indeed sparse although we can get man/kidpower and I'm working hard on donations of materials. We do have a few large planters for veg/herbs and another raised bed on one end . We'll be working on that over the next couple of weeks. hmmm, crushed granite. That may be an option. I'll need to see if there's any reason why not. I know some parents have complained about it at another non-school location. Finishing off the edges is definitely a good idea. I'd like to fill it in a bit so it's not so ugly/muddy/dirty, but it also needs to be usable space. I have shadowturf (I think it's the same as turffalo) at my house, just around the corner, and it is AMAZING in heavy shade. but, it's super expensive and spreads far too slowly - if we waited til school's out to plant, it's too hot/dry, but if we plant in March, the plugs would be a mess with school in. And even if we took plugs from my yard to save money, it'd take years to fill in. :( I'm afraid to ask too many questions of the admin in advance, for fear they'll just put me off saying "no, not possible" to general ideas. So I want to plan it out with estimated costs/funding sources and longer term expenses (like watering, altho there is a sprinkler running once per week, no idea why since it's dirt!) before I even bring it up. My short experience has already taught me that "ideas" get shot down immediately, "plans" get consideration. Ideally I'll let the kids do some research into various options, but I'll have to steer them in the right direction ;)

My house is those typically light red or dark pink bricks with white trims. We replaced all the windows so they are of vinyl white.