Mid-Atlantic Gardening: Winter Landscapes in Your Garden. Please Share!, 1 by claypa

claypa wrote:
My answer to all four of Gita's questions is Hollies! And a blue spruce, and red twig dogwood 'Cardinal'. Lots of Aronia seedlings, swamp rose, and a blueberry. The tall holly ('Dragon Lady') is planted where the maple stump was. I removed most of the roots, too.

I got rid of thirty year old burning bush and forsythia that were growing in shade on the other property line. That house is for sale so I figured I'd yank 'em before somebody got attached to them. The owner didn't care if I removed them and with all the rain we've had, it was the time to do it. I planted a few Pieris there. They'll deal with the shade better and look a lot nicer.

I can't tell you how happy I am to have that maple gone. It really oppressed the tiny back yard. My elderly neighbor's deceased husband planted it thirty years ago on the wrong side of their property line, and whenever I spoke of removing it she would go into the story of how he found it in the woods, and planted it there as a sapling, and look how big it is now, it shades my house, etc...To his credit, he also planted dogwoods, an oak, white pines and some junipers that are growing well.