Not a shrub, but a very easy to maintain ground cover--Geranium 'Biokovo', low--4-6 inches, semi-evergreen, pinkish white blooms in June. Slow spreader and easy to keep where it belongs.

lacyvail-thanks!, I will definately check that out. Last night I was looking at some groundcovers and wondering if that would be a good choice.
ken-The bed is about 18'wide, and from the boxwood to the edge of the bed depthwise is 32". I have not tried digging in there but have wanted to get into it anyways because they had landscape fabric and red volcanic rock as the mulch and I want to get the fabric out and put in bark mulch. I hadn't thought of disturbing the boxwood root - it may be I can only dig up some of the spirea root in order not to disturb the boxwood. I would rather kill the spirea than the boxwood. But the spirea has to go - its just the wrong thing to have planted there unless I was going to keep them and take out the boxwood which I don't want to do. Any suggestions for taking out the spirea? Thanks!

cut it to the ground.. and apply 100% roundup or stump killer to the cambian layer.. which is the green just under the bark ..

you will need about 1 teaspoon of it to do the job....

good luck removing fabric and lava.. that sounds like an all summer long nightmare.. it aint gunna be easy ...

18 inches isnt much of an area in which to plant anything.. that can out compete the established hedge ... i suspect it will be rather hard to dig in there ...

since you have the round up.. increase the bed to 2 to 3 feet .. and then plant out away from the boxwood ...

a picture would sure help me understand the situation ...

in reality ... you have the rest of the summer to do this.. it really isnt time to be planting anything ... july/august.. so just get to work.. make a plan.. develop the bed.. and plan on planting in fall ... or next spring ...

ken

Hey Ken, I was just near Adrian today - drove past Irish Hills - thats a pretty area. As far as taking out the fabric and rock I don't think it will be that bad. Its the rest of it that sounds like a lot of work. I will try digging in there and see how it goes before the round up but you are probably right about it being difficult. I will try to post a pic soon - its a small lot so I don't know about increasing the bed. I am trying to simplify and have less maintenance. There are a couple of large yew bushes as well in the front of the house so just taking out the fabric and rock and putting in a mulch will help. I think I will just keep the size of the bed as is and go with something simple. My house is tiny and I don't think I want to go all out with landscaping - I don't think its worth it. Thanks for the suggestions, now I know how to get the spirea out. I wish these people would have thought about what they were planting together - they had a perrenial planted all along one side of the house I had to rip out right when I moved in because it was climbing into the siding and ripping it off. I guess they never noticed. Thanks again!

the problem with rock.. is that it usually will not rake up.. and with the fabric.. you cant use a shovel.. and what you end up doing.. is having to pick up every rock by hand ... and that can be a never ending nightmare ...

when i removed the prior owner insanity... i would do a one or two foot area.. per day.. for what seemed like a month ... at least you have the pool to jump in ..

then there is the problem of what the heck you are going to do with the rock .... on your small lot ... its not like you can put a ton of rock at the curb for the garbageman ...

figuring out what to plant. is going to be the least of your problems. ..

good luck

ken

Ken-Well if I know me, I will stick a tarp in the area and scoop it with a dust pan onto the tarp, then when its full enough I will drag it to the back yard where I will dump it on another tarp til I figure out what to do with it. Whatever I drag to the curb around here gets picked up quick, then theres always craigslist free listing. We pay extra for garbage pickup around here and I can put whatever I want out to the curb but I don't think I will have to do that.
I figure where theres a will theres a way. The problem is the will. But I do have the will to get that rock outta there, but not a whole lot beyond that at this point - maybe next years project unless I get a second wind.

i washed mine in a garden sieve [see link] ... and laid it where i was going to build the deck ...

can you throw it under the deck????

i was sure you could do it.. i just wanted to make sure you understood it might not be a 3 hour job ...

ken

Here is a link that might be useful: link

Ken, thats a good idea-under the deck, but I put it on craigslist free and got a response the first day - so if they don't end up coming out maybe I will do that. I was trying to figure out where it would be useful but it just gets so dirty looking so someplace its hidden is better. I also dug up one spirea to see how hard it would be and its not bad - I prefer that to using poisons if I can help it. Thanks for the info!