On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 13:29:14 -0000, Charlie Pridham
wrote:

In article ,
says...
The message
from rbel contains these words:


We removed some very elderly shrubs and some rather sick large
escallonias
last autumn from some metre plus wide borders and would be grateful
for
suggestions as to what to replace them with. Preferably evergreen,
flowering or just attractive foliage and shape.

The location is south Devon, about 800 metres from the coast, on a
relatively exposed hill. Two borders receive full sun for around 2/3
of
the day and another for 1/3 of the day. Frosts of any significance
are
rare (even this winter) but high winds are fairly frequent. We are
on the
edge of the Devon Redlands and the soil has a fairly high clay
content.
Existing planting includes various conifers, pieris, mahonia, various
broom, eryngium, photinia davidiana, some large phormium, a couple of
surviving escallonia gold ellen, various euonymous, fatsia jopinica,
skimmia, berberis darwinii.

You could try the larger leaved hebes, which flower heavily for many
months.
Choisya ternata (handsome evergreen foliage, fragrant white flowers)
Lonicera nitida Baggeson's Gold ( very small evergreen gold leaves,
a good contrast to other foliage)
Cornus alba elegantissima (variegated foliage, not evergreen but
attractive red stems in winter)

Janet


Add to that Hollies and Eleagnus


Many thanks for the suggestions to date. When I listed some of the
existing plants I forgot that we had choisia ternata (and the yellow
Sundance variety) and lonicera nitida Baggeson's Gold, but all the other
ideas are new to us.


--
rbel