What to plant on islands? (flowers, grass, trees, weeds)

[maestramommy]

We have a large island lining our driveway. It has a laurel tree, some other tallish trees with small blooms in the spring, two small bushes/tree with purply flowers, and a rhody that we cut down to almost nothing last fall, but has since turned into some kind of octopus. On one side is a kind of ground cover that covers about 15 percent of the total. And every other inch is covered with crab grass and other random weeds. I swear I completely weeded everything last fall, but things went nuts this year, and now it's even worse than last year. I want to clear out all the weeds and small spots of random ground cover. After that, what kind of flowers would be good? Black eyed Susans are very popular here, it seems like all of my neighbors have them, but I'm not so fond of that color combo. Dh was suggesting get some kind of wildflower mix, and just scatter it all over, see what happens. Anyone do that? I live in Southern NH.

[motordavid]

Imo, after you weed, lay down thin weed mat, (forget the "technical term", lol!), overlapping to slow down/prevent the weed invasion.

I'm a fan of perennial grasses: hardy year after year even in NH, great background, side ground look, and can spill over the island edges, etc.
Most of the miscanthus are tough, showy and come back a little bigger every year. Trouble free, inexpensive, not fussy...and, maybe some purple
cone flowers sprinkled in around the grasses, being careful not to crowd the grass crown too much, as the grass spears will be right in the "face" of
any flower heads that are too close.

Just my 50Cts...a pic of your island area would help considerably, as suggestions in the dark and long distance, are difficult.
GL, mD