Planting Suggestions
1634 Racine
Posts: 568
Hello All
I'm in the process of creating/designing a new bed and would like some suggestions for an evergreen shrub to form the backbone.
I don't have a massive amount of space and so 1.5m x 1.5m is probably as large as I could go. Location is on clay in partial shade (3-4 hours of direct sunlight).
Flowers, berries, interesting foliage all welcome 
So far I have a shortlist of Lonicera nitida 'Lemon Beauty' or some form of hebe, escallonia or cotoneaster. If you have an experience (good or bad) of these would be interested to hear your thoughts.
To be honest I would love a mountain laurel but I have a toddler running around and have read some pretty nasty things about the toxicity of the leaves and flowers. Anybody got any experience of this?
Posts
Hi Racine. A Choisya might be a good choice. Its evergreen with lovely scented white flowers at this time of year. Mine is just starting to fill the air outside my back door with its scent as the buds open. I would not be overly concerned if you want a Laurel (apart from when any berries appear) None of us would have much of a garden if we avoided all poisonous plants. For example, daffodils are poisonous. Imagine how sad Spring would be without them.
I planted both an escallonia 'apple blossom' and kalmia latifolia (mountain laurel) a year ago and neither have done very well for me. Hopefully it was just a year of settling in and this year will provide some flowers...
I also read about the kalmia being sticky to touch and an irritant so you should wear gloves when handling, I have a 6 year old and 2 year old twins though and am not concerned. This is acid loving so you'd need to have acidic soil if planting it.
I also have choisyas (white dazzler and the standard one), these are both good choices.
I doubt Escallonia or Hebe would thrive in that aspect and conditions. Improving the soil is easy enough, nut you can't improve the location.
Choisya is a great candidate, and I'd add Viburnum, Amelanchier and Osmanthus to the list. All of those will do well in the conditions you have.
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
I've got on well with the lonicera in my clay soil in a windy garden. It shrugs all the weather off and provides great shelter for more tender plants (I have delphiniums next to it). It's a dense shrub - quite 'hedgey' (made up word
). Cotoneaster - I have a couple of different forms - is rather shapeless by nature, much more lax than the lonicera, so more a centre of the border plant that others can grow under and through (I have vinca, sea lovage, crocosmia lucifer and a big nepeta growing under and through an upright cotoneaster. I have primroses, cowslips and bluebells coming up though one of the very low growing prostrate ones.)
Depends what effect you're after
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
I agree with Fairy.
It will be too shady for a Hebe and probably Escallonia as well.
When you don't even know who's in the team
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
My choice would be a Sarcoccocca humilis. Nice tidy evergreen shrub, will take pruning, small leaves and has scented flowers in winter.
Thanks for all your suggestions. A few of those are new to me so I have some googling and reading up to do
Very much agree on Choisya. I have 'Aztec Pearl' already and it fills a lovely gap around this time of year.
Also a big fan of Viburnum but have just had a horrible experience where beetles have actually killed off my 3 year old 'Eve Price'. The stripped the leaves last year and this Spring all the leave have gone brown and dropped. Not sure if I can face that again.