Unsolicited gardening advice
The new burgundy weigelas (smaller than the old-fashioned kind, with dark rose pink flowers and burgundy foliage) are a cheap way to spiff up the garden. Wine and Roses (~4'x4' - possibly bigger in the south) is awesome and available for reasonable prices at Lowes. Midnight Wine (a harder-to-find dwarf) is great for small spaces.
Clethra is awesome. Hummingbirds are great mid-sized shrubs that smell wonderful when they're in bloom. Sixteen Candles is a Hummingbird seedling that has upright (rather than drooping) panicles. Both are very good. Ruby Spice is an upright cultivar with pretty rose pink flowers.
Abelia rocks. I like Rose Creeks, and we just bought some Silver Anniversary abelia that look cool - I hope they do well. The Mardi Gras didn't do well with the snow this past winter and had a hard recovery. I don't like how they grew back - variegation is much more yellow than when we bought them. They might need a new home. We have some of the taller stuff too (came with the house), but I don't know their exact names.
Ninebark is fabulous for larger spaces - gorgeous dark foliage. We like Seward/Summer Wine, but Diablo is nice too.
My hydrangeas have had a rough summer. Some of them are planted in too much sun, and even the ones in the shade are drying out far too much. They do NOT like afternoon sun. I'm hoping next year is cooler and wetter. Our paniculatas are doing well, except for the standard that died to the ground and is resprouting from the roots - no idea what killed it - probably a combination of weak root system and drought. The oakleaf hydrangeas are doing well. They really like shade. Our Alice supposedly can take full sun, but although she's doing OK, she looks notably less happy than the others that are in the shade. I think she'd be doing better if it were morning sun, but it's the nasty southwest-side-of-a-wall-of-trees sun. If a tag says 'morning sun only', they probably mean it.
The roses have been real troopers this year. I cut them back hard after Mr. Bunny nibbled on most of their branches during the winter. I didn't spray at all this year, so the blackspot defoliated them and the Japanese Beetles ate them in the middle of the summer, but they've recovered nicely from both. I planted hardy geraniums (a white-flowered cultivar that rambles two feet or so into other shrubs if they're nearby) at their feet last week. I hope that this will make them look better when the black spot and beetles hit next summer. Several of them are blooming again, so apparently they liked their fertilizer. . .
May Night Salvia (or Snow Hill if you prefer white flowers) and Veronica spicata (Red Fox did well for us if you want rose pink (no, they're not really red)) repeat bloom on and off through the summer if you deadhead them. Becky shasta daisies are built like rocks and will rebloom, and Magnus and/or Kim's Knee-High coneflowers are very good - and the birds love the seed heads. The new coneflowers in exciting new colors are SO tempting, but from several sources and personal experience, I know that they do not come back reliably the next spring. Let me know if you have had better luck with them, but one gardening author said that she heard rumor of *one* surviving a winter in this area. If they weren't so expensive, I'd plant them as annuals - Twilight makes me swoon (cultivar, not the book/movie)
Bluestone Perennials sells TINY, but exceptionally healthy perennials. If you water them properly, their growth during the first summer will amaze you. I can't believe the current size of the teensy tiny pieces of Siberian Iris I planted this past summer, and the obedient plants are huge. I wouldn't order any common varieties from them because you can get big potted plants of the same type for the same price locally, but I was very pleased with the less commonly found plants I ordered this past spring. Why is Caesar's Brother the only Siberian Iris most stores carry? These are the easiest plants on the planet. . .
Much of this stuff is native to North America, but even the stuff that's not gives the local bees and birds plenty of nectar and pollen, and none of it is invasive or seriously thuggish.
Clethra is awesome. Hummingbirds are great mid-sized shrubs that smell wonderful when they're in bloom. Sixteen Candles is a Hummingbird seedling that has upright (rather than drooping) panicles. Both are very good. Ruby Spice is an upright cultivar with pretty rose pink flowers.
Abelia rocks. I like Rose Creeks, and we just bought some Silver Anniversary abelia that look cool - I hope they do well. The Mardi Gras didn't do well with the snow this past winter and had a hard recovery. I don't like how they grew back - variegation is much more yellow than when we bought them. They might need a new home. We have some of the taller stuff too (came with the house), but I don't know their exact names.
Ninebark is fabulous for larger spaces - gorgeous dark foliage. We like Seward/Summer Wine, but Diablo is nice too.
My hydrangeas have had a rough summer. Some of them are planted in too much sun, and even the ones in the shade are drying out far too much. They do NOT like afternoon sun. I'm hoping next year is cooler and wetter. Our paniculatas are doing well, except for the standard that died to the ground and is resprouting from the roots - no idea what killed it - probably a combination of weak root system and drought. The oakleaf hydrangeas are doing well. They really like shade. Our Alice supposedly can take full sun, but although she's doing OK, she looks notably less happy than the others that are in the shade. I think she'd be doing better if it were morning sun, but it's the nasty southwest-side-of-a-wall-of-trees sun. If a tag says 'morning sun only', they probably mean it.
The roses have been real troopers this year. I cut them back hard after Mr. Bunny nibbled on most of their branches during the winter. I didn't spray at all this year, so the blackspot defoliated them and the Japanese Beetles ate them in the middle of the summer, but they've recovered nicely from both. I planted hardy geraniums (a white-flowered cultivar that rambles two feet or so into other shrubs if they're nearby) at their feet last week. I hope that this will make them look better when the black spot and beetles hit next summer. Several of them are blooming again, so apparently they liked their fertilizer. . .
May Night Salvia (or Snow Hill if you prefer white flowers) and Veronica spicata (Red Fox did well for us if you want rose pink (no, they're not really red)) repeat bloom on and off through the summer if you deadhead them. Becky shasta daisies are built like rocks and will rebloom, and Magnus and/or Kim's Knee-High coneflowers are very good - and the birds love the seed heads. The new coneflowers in exciting new colors are SO tempting, but from several sources and personal experience, I know that they do not come back reliably the next spring. Let me know if you have had better luck with them, but one gardening author said that she heard rumor of *one* surviving a winter in this area. If they weren't so expensive, I'd plant them as annuals - Twilight makes me swoon (cultivar, not the book/movie)
Bluestone Perennials sells TINY, but exceptionally healthy perennials. If you water them properly, their growth during the first summer will amaze you. I can't believe the current size of the teensy tiny pieces of Siberian Iris I planted this past summer, and the obedient plants are huge. I wouldn't order any common varieties from them because you can get big potted plants of the same type for the same price locally, but I was very pleased with the less commonly found plants I ordered this past spring. Why is Caesar's Brother the only Siberian Iris most stores carry? These are the easiest plants on the planet. . .
Much of this stuff is native to North America, but even the stuff that's not gives the local bees and birds plenty of nectar and pollen, and none of it is invasive or seriously thuggish.