Bullsie, it is normal, but i feel guilty when i've visited a large ordered collection. One of the under bench plants is "baby's tears" Ian, i should have commented on your plants, very nicely grown indeed and two species that do best on mounts. Having said that i am reminding you that the word on top of the page is Discussions. If you care to put Arthurm in the search box at the top of the page you will find that i have done just that....taken part in in over 500 discussions. Your insulting paragraph is not appreciated.

For that small area next to the house I would do a JM or fringetree. The emperor 1 as mentioned is probably too big Fireglow might even be too big. Pagoda Dogwood is definitely too big. I'd also suggest putting something evergreen in the corner closest to the driveway. For the side yard I would plant something like a Green Giant or your regionally popular screening tree and some bowhall red maples or crimson spire oak or something to give you some screening. That looks like a pretty nice view there of the countryside but make it so when you sit outside in your backyard or look out your windows that you don't see any other homes. Thus I wouldn't suggest any of the plants on your list for the sideyard. Something tall growing to give you shade and screening and some privacy. And something long lived and problem free. You also will problably want some clearance there in case you need to access the back yard with some heavy equipment for some reason. As for the back yard it's hard to judge from that photo what I'm looking at and where the property line ends. To me it looks like you've got room for one of each of those on your list. Out of all of those, the yellowwood and horschestnut are what interest me the most. I think you need some oaks in there and some maples and beeches. Maybe a tricolor beech.

The terms do not mean what you are probably thinking. "Blooms on old wood" applies to hydrangeas like Mopheads and Oakleaf hydrangeas- hydrangeas of these types produce invisible flower buds on last year's growth (around July-August-September) and these open in the Spring. Last year's growth is what is meant by "old wood". If my old-wood mophead develops a new stem this Spring, I would not expect bloomage from it until Spring 2016. "Blooms on new wood" applies to hydrangeas like Limelight and Annabelle- hydrangeas of these two types produce invisible flower buds this year (around May-July) and these invisible flower buds then open as soon as they are ready (in a month+ or so maybe? meaning you are not waiting all winter long for example). The stems that produce blooms may be brand new ones from this year. Or they could be stems from last year that leafed out this year. New stems, by the way, will not be as strong and as older ones. They will not support big heavy blooms as well so, you could see new stems with large blooms bending. Older stems get stronger as time passes and can support bigr/heavy blooms better.

Gee, Renovator, sorry to have taken up SO MUCH OF YOUR VALUABLE TIME. I confirmed that the wall is load bearing, and in the demolition noticed that the single 2 x 4 header over the existing swing door had a SLIGHT downnward bow in it, which means that that opening should also have been headed off by something more substantial than a single two by four during the original construction 15 years ago. The deflection wasn't (yet) enough to impede or cause any visible problems with the swing door. Hollysprings, still waiting for that method to calculate the load. In the mean time, through some internet research have found that a 2x6 header is adequate to support a conventionally framed unoccupied attic for my rough opening of 49-1/4".