What would you plant here?

[Anonymous]

Our dining room looks out onto our backyard. The window is about 4 feet off the ground and has eastern exposure. The bushes that were here when we moved in have grown tall and are now blocking most of the window (and are very straggling below it). If I rip them out, what would be good to plant instead? It would be nice to have something pretty as a view out the window — otherwise it looks to some grass and beyond that some evergreens and the back fence, so nothing very scenic. Google suggests the current bush in an inkberry bush but I don’t recall ever seeing any flowers or berries on it—just small dark green evergreen leaves.

[Anonymous]

Inkberry holly is a great evergreen foundation planting, can you try cutting it back by a third to see if that revives it and makes it less scraggly?

I am planting gatsby gal and limelight hydrangeas under some windows, but might might be higher than yours. Check out limelight prime for a lower height

[Anonymous]

Browse through tons of magazines and online pictures of gardens and houses for some ideas.

[Anonymous]

Inkberry holly is dioecious, so to bloom and bear fruit you need to plant both male and female plants. Nonetheless, the flowers and fruits are somewhat inconspicuous. Think of it as our native version of a boxwood.

For an east facing flowering shrub, you could try a dwarf kalmia, native azalea (not evergreen), rhododendron, fothergilla, or Virgnia sweetspire.

[Anonymous]

We have pink rhododendrons.