Shrubs

[wineandchocolateforthewin]

Hi, i am looking to dig out the attached laurel and replace with something with colour. No idea on soil type I'm afraid, the spot is quite shady, I've been looking online and found Chaenomeles, Daphne's or (soil dependent) Enkianthus could work. Any thoughts on these plants?
We're keeping the green/white plant next to the laurel, next to that is an Acer and a Holly

Do you want something evergreen, variegated or flowering? And if flowering, what colour and time of year? Do you want something that will grow large, or keep mid-sized? Will you want something that takes a long time to grow to any size? How about something that is good for wildlife/bees etc?

The plant besides looks very squashed, I think I'd be inclined to put in something either low growing or that can be kept low to give the Acer room to spread above.

I think I’d take it out and put bulbs in rather than a shrub, and give the other plants room. Or plant a small daphne.

@BewareTheBeardedDragon

The plant besides looks very squashed, I think I'd be inclined to put in something either low growing or that can be kept low to give the Acer room to spread above.

Also, a border should be roughly triangle-shaped (as in low-HIGH-low) so a low-growing plant fits that concept, too. What about skimmia japonica - evergreen, always in flower or fruit, will take most soil types, OK in light shade.

Skimmia is lovely and smells gorgeous! I have one and ime it's not always in flower or fruit, though it's season is long. Also ime they don't thrive in heavy alkaline soil - I moved mine to a pot where I could give it ericaceous compost and it's much happier.

The one that looks next to it is growing behind it, this laurel will be coming out completely, the previous owners didn't really do much in the way of managing the size and shape of the plants hence why they are so tall, it's bare at the front as we had to have so much cut off it to get it back within the border line
I like the idea of a daphne, it looks very pretty, we need more colour, there are currently no flowers in that area.
We don't want something huge, would like flowers to appeal to the bees and butterflies

As for flowering, not bothered what colour or what time of the year it flowers