I currently have at the front of my house rows of Azalea's that forms a hedge that borders my garden (well that was the plan). I have black stallions (don't know the biological name for them) that act as seperators between each row of Azalea's.

The garden is almost 3 years old and whilst I love the Azalea's and they look great when they flower they are starting to die off one by one as I have found it difficult to spend as much time looking after their soil ph etc since my son arrived :)

So I have decided that I need to replace them with something more robust. My knowledge of plants is pretty much limited to what I have in my garden so I am looking for suggestions to replace the Azalea's.

I would like to get something that has nice flowers like the Azalea's and can also grow as sort of hedge (not essential though). There are already a bunch of houses in my court with roses so I wanted to do something a bit different.

My house faces East.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.