This is a long thread I just stumbled upon so I didn't do my due diligence and read through all the comments to see if my recommendation was already suggested so please forgive me if it was. I would plant 'American Pillar' Arborvitae along the entire fence line and give it a couple of years. It's cheap (I found them for $7.50 a pop for an order of 100 plants last year), narrow (3-foot at base when mature), tall (30-foot max), fast (3-foot per year, once established), densely evergreen (no see through branches), cold hardy (to zone 3), disease free and long lived (no known problems with a lifespan of it's ancestors measured in centuries). What more can one ask for? Here is a link that might be useful: American Pillar Arborvitae

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.

I miss Dan, too! I last exchanged emails with him about a year ago and he indicated he'd be back on GW soon. Well, he's not! His advice was particularly valuable to me since he lives (or lived) here and understands gardening at altitude with 13 inches of annual precip. in clay soil. Since we're up to a whopping 9 inches so far this year, I could have used his insights! He knows what he's talking about, helped me tremendously and kept me from making a few mistakes. But, yes, he was snippy sometimes! ilovemytrees, I planted a Carpinus betulus 'Fastiagata' 6 weeks ago, so I'm glad to hear you adore it. I love it's form and now that the leaves have dropped, it's just loaded with buds, so I have high hopes for it's survival. From what I've been able to gather it's ultimate size at maturity is 40' X 30', so not super skinny! Barb

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.