I Know Why This Is Hard

Designing a garden bed, I mean.  Because trees and shrubs are costly, hard to move, grow at unexpected rates, bloom at different times and in potentially urpy combinations, need to flourish under the given conditions, and require years to look their best.  So that's why I'm still tinkering in a dissatisfied manner with my plans for the hot, sunny west exposure of the house.

This is using the free Better Homes and Gardens plan-a-garden app, which is imperfect but gives you some idea of shapes and how things look together.

From the left-- Rosareum Uetersen on the fence, Ceanothus Marie Simon, April Blush camellia, Blue Chiffon hibiscus, three abelias-- Rose Creek or Edward Goucher probably.  Dragonlady holly and then a Winter Gem boxwood which I already have.  I threw some juniper in there-- it gets big, might use some wall germander or something low and shrubby repeated in several places.  Hoping to fit in some caryopteris, but that remains to be seen.  On the right, another boxwood (already there), a Sweetbay Magnolia probably too close to the house (6'), and the monster butterfly bush which I'm not moving at present.  The two shrubs are currently Little Lime hydrangeas I quite like, but I don't know if I will want to move those and repeat some material from the left side.

On the potential sick list:

One of my Encore azaleas is not looking good at all.
Little boxwoods are looking daunted and my dumb dog has completely exploded one of them.
Spruce and magnolia seem to be holding their own.
The magnolia planted in front of the nursing home generator (not mine, theirs) went completely kaputen.  Very sad, especially since I'm not at all confident they'll replace it.  They did their planting pretty late, I wonder if it just didn't get a chance to develop a root system.
The limber pines all have comical flat heads from the snow and ice, but they're limber, right?  I figure they'll recover.

I have a bunch of perennials started from seed.  Worried I cooked them too near my south window.  Time will prove.

Found out from Pickering Nurseries that my roses are coming in early April.  Perfect.  Now I just have to find out where I'm putting them :)