Thinking about woody plants for those hot southern and western exposures lead me straight to grandmother's garden. I quickly remember her shrub row at the edge of the lawn.

It started with a snowball hydrangea, followed by a pink spirea, followed by Rose of Sharon followed by a white spirea and then it repeated. At the end was a wisteria trained into a single stemmed bush. At the far end, just around the corner, was a clump of forsythia that had grown enough that we kids would have tunnels through it.

There was a pussy willow by the meadow fence and a wiegelia by the above ground gas tank. There was a mock orange and a butterfly bush, too, but I can't remember where they were. That was about it.

Although I wonder about the hydrangeas they would still be a successful list today. The difference is that the number of selections of each of these has multiplied. One advance is that they come in various sizes, often with dwarf varieties if you have a smaller yard.

A second entrant in the contest for tough sites includes the recent upsurge in the use of native plants. Ninebarks, winterberries, and twig dogwoods are three groups of great plants that are near invincible. There are more.

Another group would include almost all conifers or traditional evergreens. The real challenge with evergreens is to find one that is totally happy in the under-story or shade.

It would be easy to expand or provide more detail on any of the three lists above, but there comes a point where a few caution flags must go up.

Winter wind, especially March's drying blasts, are often a problem that remove some of the nursery shrubs from the tough list. Even evergreens that will handle the site may need protection in their first winter.

The second flag is the heated environment and the favors it offers insects. Tops on the list are the very difficult to control spider mites. They are large enough that you can just about see them on the bottom of the leaf. They suck juices from the plant and in large quantities can do serious damage.

An interesting side-note on the common evergreen, Dwarf Alberta Spruce, is that when planted up against the hot reflective side of the house they are mite dessert. Push them out into the yard and they are seldom bothered by mites.

I'm sure that the purist will claim that I have listed plants above that like more moisture than found in the hot, dry, southern and western side of the house. I won't argue, just suggest that they are tougher than we think. I have planted them all in the tough spots and have watched them thrive.

In today's marketplace you will find a lot of interesting plants. Some have origins from around the world. Those that came from coastal or maritime climates will most likely struggle in the tough sites we have been discussing.

I'll close with a bit of advice. When you fall in love with a plant you have never heard of, make sure it will tolerate the tough spots or plant it on the east side of the house out of the wind.

Last night someone challenged my title as the world's greatest plant killer. To retaliate, I took a very questionable shrub and planted it in a cold, windy, dry spot. I would be ecstatic if it is happy there, but am not optimistic.

When you are sure you know how to kill a plant, then you most likely know how to grow it.