When planting different kinds of shrubs together how do you measure the distance between two? For instance if one says to plant 5' apart and the one you are going to plant next to it says to plant 3' apart how far apart do you plant 3', 5' or 8'?

When planting shrubs you measure from the center of one plant to the center of the next. So, if you have one plant saying 5' apart, you would start the next shrub 2.5 feet on either side from the center. A 3' shrub would be 1.5 feet on either side from the center. So in this case it would be 4 feet apart.

I think? Right? Neal, help, LOL. .

That's exactly what I was thinking.

Thank you!

Tami, Just so that you don't make the same mistakes I have you might want to post the species here to double check sizes. Grows to 8' on the label can become 15-18' in my experience. I've found Plant Files data does not always accurately describe the ultimate size of shrubs I have either. If you're skeptical take a look a Polly's post here: The thread "Salix Hakuro Nishiki" in Trees and Shrubs forum.

Here's another example: Alberta Spruce supposed to grow to 6-8'

Wow! That is a big difference. Thanks for the info Evan.