Kay wrote:
A lot of books will give you a final spread for shrubs. Plant
according to that distance and the garden will look bare until
they've reached their final size, plant too close and you'll have to
take some out later.

I always plant too close, FWIW. Looks good from the start and keeps
the weeds down. Then difficult decisions later on as to what to leave
and what to take out.

Currently planting Box and Euonymus at a guessed 2 ft between plants,
probably plant the other stuff at the same planting distances, I can
always dig them up later.


Two rules of thumb:

1. Gardener's: distance between two shrubs = 2/3 the sum of the mature
height. At maturity will give massed growth but very empty in the medium
term

2 Designer's: Large shrubs (eg buddleia) 1.5m between centres. Medium
(Choisya) 1.0m. Small (lavender) 45/60cm. Overplanted at maturity but fills
out to good effect in a season or two.


Something like Geranium macchorizum (spelling!!!!) provides excellent
in-between ground cover in the interim in either regime - spreading & shade
tolerant

pk