Taking advantage of beautiful weather

What a day! Weather was just beyond beautiful- 63 degrees! We slept in, and then spent most of the day outdoors, working it in the backyard! Lots of work accomplished today- we got the new veggie garden bed in the side yard filled with compost (pic on right is pre-compost), and then spent several hours weeding the back bed, on the south side of our house that always gets neglected.

I swear we turned up nearly every inch of that soil, ripped out about 10,000 ridiculous bulbs that I've been meaning to get rid of for the last couple of years! Then we covered the area with landscape fabric, and 2-3" mulch from Recycle Ann Arbor/City of Ann Arbor compost.

Next up will be finding some shrubs worthy of the space. So far we're thinking of shrubby cinquefoil or juniper. We're looking for something between 3-6" tall that can be trimmed fairly easily and is native to the area. If it has other beneficial properties (edible, medicinal, etc), all the better. The space is about 5ft x 12ft, so we're thinking 3-5 bushes would cover without looking too crowded.


Any suggestions? What's your favorite type of shrub?