An unruly mess!

[ItWillBeOkHonestly]

Hi everyone
We have this unruly mess at the front of the house and I'm finally going to have it dug up! I'd like to replace it with a few evergreen plants that won't require much care. Can anyone suggest what I should buy please? Don't have a huge budget!

I would just give that all a good trim and put in some bedding plants rather than digging it all up. Or maybe some lavender & rosemary for easy maintenance.

If you really don't want it then give it away, advertise on the Nextdoor app or something similar, it would be such a shame to let it die.

I like it.

I was just about to comment that I would trim it, give it some shape and then add some bedding plants for some colour but the PP beat me to it.

Is there a reason you don't like it how it is? Apart from the unkempt look because that's easily solvable.

what do you want there?

Can't you cut back and work round it?
they are nice hedges?

The lower plant looks like white spire euonymus, I know this as I was looking to buy some but my god it's gone up in price! Someone will definitely take it off your hands.

This is going to sound ridiculous but it reminds me of an unruly bikini line!! No matter what we do with it, it just grows out at awkward angles and doesn't seem to stay in shape. The neighbours all have neat little areas with a handful of neat shrubs. I feel like our house is letting the street down so I just want something simpler!

If they hadn’t seen the picture, I imagine a lot of people would recommend precisely what you have there. What you have is two evergreen plants that don’t require much care.

I was expecting something that would need a machete to get through!
What you have is lovely, and just needs a trim if anything. It'd be a terrible shame just to dig it up. You've got easily maintainable shrubs!
That is definitely NOT letting the street down.

The plant at the rear is a variegated Griselinia. You can clip it like a hedge.

Let the Euonymus at the front grow u til it covers all the soil just clipping back any long straggly bits. Depending on the orientation of the house you could have bulbs/flowering perennials growing up through it.

I agree with other posters, you just need to trim back what you have. If you do it now then the plants will have a chance to grow a better shape over the summer.
This type of planting is often put in the front of new builds and the developers don’t leave any care instructions. I’d also put in some summer bedding to pretty it up.
Perennial shrubs have become very expensive, so try to improve what you’ve got before spending £££.

They've just become too big for the space but they are basically what you're asking for. Trim them right back into submission. Underplant with lavender or something.

As pp have said, tidy it up (give it a Brazilian!) And then add some different colours and textures - photinia (pink marble is my favourite), English lavender and purpley/pink hebes would look nice and are winter hardy.

Well, I actually took all your advice and got someone to tidy it up for me! I'm actually very surprised and I kinda like it now. Before it just seemed too unruly to do anything with!

Thank you all for helping me to think about it differently. I'm not much of a gardener so I just assumed it was an unruly out of control hedge!

Looks so much better - nothing like a neatly trimmed bush! 😂👏👏

That looks much better and plenty of room to plant other things.