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've seen redbuds growing on the woodland edge get to near 40' tall, no joke. Small trees are not really my forté but I do think autumn brilliance apple serviceberry is a worthwhile pick. Being a relatively new release there don't seem to be a lot of older ones but these are reported to have a mature height of about 18'. Coupled with a dogwood which blooms a little bit later, this will give you an extended period of flowering. Also good for wildlife. I like the pagoda dogwood. This may fit into your size requirements. There are also some neat dogwood shrubs like the native bunchberry (Cornus canadensis) which is like an itty bitty dogwood tree that is only inches tall. Then there's Cornus pumila which gets to about 4' tall. Just some food for thought. You can definitely have your cake and eat it too, just look for some dwarfs.

Ditto on the White Fringetree (Chionanthus virginicus) or American smoketree (Cotinus obovatus). Both are uncommon trees, and make a great conversation piece. Serviceberry is also a nice tree, although eventually it might too big to place under a power line. Franklintree (Franklinia alatamaha) is also small and very rare, although it can be a bit finicky.

We have a dwarf weeping pussy willow, Salix caprea, that might fit the bill. It's only supposed to grow 6-8' tall. Nice weeping form, with buds and flowers in early spring like other pussy willows. Really unique. Easy to find in Triangle area nurseries and relatively inexpensive. My personal favorite, however, would be a Japanese maple. Lots of weeping varieties available, both in red and green. I saw some very nice Tamukeyama and Red Select, both red weeping varieties, at Lowe's today for about $80 for trees about 4' tall -- which is a good price for JMs of that size with nice form. There are also some dwarf varieties of crepe myrtles that might be nice. We have a Velma's Royal Delight that has a deep purple flowers, nice form and dwarf habit. Victor is a red dwarf.