The Spirea is very easy to grow...we have a shrub which is about 5 years old and every spring we have some "shoots" coming out from the roots. In this case you have to dig a bit till you see the shoot (about 2 feet high) and that's the place to cut.Around the shoot you see little roots (like hair)make shure you include this with the branch you are cutting. After the shoot is planted and is well established, you'll see some new growth on the stem. If you want a little tree, you cut the growth off and just have the top growing and shape it from time to time. The same thing with "pontentilla", the one with yellow flowers, except you cut this one very bottom of the shrub, put it in water, till you see the roots. Roses are difficult to grow, especially if they have a fungus (black spots,yellow leafs)you would have to pick the leafs and after spray it with water and dishdetergent mixed.

Meguin, how is your garden coming? I am new to balcony gardening, but am a longtime gardener (mostly vegetables). I don't know about the wind conditions, but your balcony sounds like a great spot for herbs and some salad veggies. You can easily grow herbs in pots or one big pot (this is great because the added volume will hold and retain water better) Rosemary, parsley, sage and thyme would be great together. If you plant mint, plant it by itself because it will spread and takeover(a shallow bowl type pot works well). it also wants to stay a little wetter than the other herbs. Most herbs are perennials and if you have a sunny window, you can even bring them inside in the winter to enjoy all year long. You can also grow a luttuce bowl for your rabbits (and you). A mesclun mix is always fun, flavorful and colorful. You can just pick the outside leaves as they mature and keep it going. I would guess any berries would each require their own pot, starting with just a few inches larger than thier original nursery container. Since it is windy, I'd avoid or limit hanging pots. To start your pots, use a good potting soil. Regular soil will be too dense for the pots. Make sure they all have good drainage. Lay a coffee filter over the bottom of the empty pot (to slow water and hold in the soil). Pebbles or even packing peanuts are good for the first layer (1-2 inches) to give the water something to run through. Then add your soil. Most transplants will get buried flush (not deeper than they are in their current pots), so just set them evenly around your pot, and fill in around them with more soil. Press it in lightly, then water thoroughly and fill any spots where the soil has settled. (You can check this periodically too to see if there are any low spots. Plan to water daily since you are getting a lot of sun. I hope you have fun and decide to expand into some veggies for you. Tomatoes and eggplants would be very happy in your sunny conditions (try dwarf varieties). You'll love them. Using the same potting technique, experiment with flowers that make you happy - it's amazing how a splash of color can make you smile.

Hi Steffie! Your experience with bermuda grass reminds me why I HATE bermuda grass. :) My brother put down black plastic (plain old black plastic like trash bags are made of, not the fabric mulch type) on a newly tilled flower bed and planted perennials right through it. When he removed that plastic FIVE YEARS LATER, there were still those long bermuda runners everywhere. I never try to make a new lasagna bed without removing the sod first, having learned the hard way. I found it interesting that your grandmother raised her crops in stages. I do the same thing, and have never met anyone here who does it in the precise, regimented way that I do. I'll use tomatoes as an example since they are the crop I grow the most of. I start my earliest seedlings, about 70% of my main season tomato crop, on Super Bowl weekend. Then, six weeks later I start the other 30%. I plant out in cycles, beginning in mid to late March most years, and get the late ones from the second planting into the ground by late April. Then, in mid to late-May I start seeds for fall tomatoes, or take and root cuttings in mid-June. I get the fall tomatoes in the ground in late June to early July. In late August I start seeds for a few winter tomatoes in containers, generally small-sized ones like Window Box Roma, Red Robin, Yellow Canary, etc. These tomatoes in pots can go into the garage or house during cold spells and extend the fresh tomato season quite a bit. I do similar succession plantings of most veggies, including beans (every three weeks), corn (every 5 weeks), melons (generally an early planting in mid-April and a late planting in late May), summer and winter squash, peppers, okra and black-eyed peas. I do the same thing with flowers. Take sunflowers. I plant different ones for each season. So, my spring sunflowers which will begin blooming in May most years, are some of the ones lightest in color like Italian White and Moonshadow and any of the ones with the lemon-yellow petals. The summer-blooming ones, which usually begin blooming in July, are the really golden-colored ones, of which there are many varieties. The late-summer to fall blooming ones are those in tawny fall-type colors like Autumn Beauty, Earthwalker, and any of the red-flowered ones like Chianti or Prado Red. So, I always have flats of replacement plants started and it is easy to put them in the ground and plug them into holes in my garden at any time. It can get rather complicated to keep track of what needs to go where and at what time, but by staggering plantings, I have found I can have a wonderful garden each and every week of the summer. Right now, I am starting flower seeds in small paper cups. These plants will go into the ground in mid-May. The first week in May, I start flower seeds that will go into the ground in June for blooms beginning in July. And so it goes, on and on and on. With all the stages of planting, I always have something new coming along and that pleases me. Dawn

Dragon Fly, I'm sorry to hear your designer is not meeting your expectations. We hired an interior designer for the first time when we built our home a couple of years ago, and the experience was a disaster. I had looked her up online and in the yellow pages, which was probably my first mistake. The information I found indicated that she had a showroom downtown, but when I called her, she asked me to come to her home. She then proceeded to show me how she had decorated her own home. Her style (contemporary/abstract/modern) is the complete opposite of mine (more of the traditional/new country/antique) . . . you get the idea. I shared my concern right away that her personal preferences were much different than mine, but she minimized this by showing me her credentials and emphasizing that a good designer can work with any style. She also had us sign a contract for $100 per hour. She came with us to choose flooring, cabinets, countertops, etc., and the worst part was her arrogant attitude. She insulted every businessperson we came into contact with, basically telling them that their suggestions and ideas were "bad", "cheap", "ugly", whatever. She told our cabinetry company that one of their showroom cabinet models looked "unfinished" and that if we chose that option, all of our visitors would think we had "run out of money before finishing construction". I shared with her that I like antiques and quality antique reproduction furniture, and she told me that she'd never choose "that kind of dented up furniture". She took over and started making decisions for us, and of course, they were contemporary style choices. To make a long story short, we spent $800 for her to bully everybody and make our design selection experience miserable. We ended up going back to each of the contractors and personally apologizing for her rude behavior, and we also changed to all different choices than she recommended. In hindsight, it was a terrible fit, and I wish we hadn't wasted the money on her. If I could do it over again, I would have dumped her sooner for a better designer. I'm sharing this because if you do not feel comfortable with your current designer, you may be better off going in another direction before you waste too much time and money. In the end, we sought out design advice from the professional contractors we worked with, including the cabinetry company (recommended the gorgeous black and cream cabinetry in our kitchen), our painter (chose many of the warm colors I love), Ethan Allen's free designers (where we bought our dining set), the people in this forum (kitchen window treatment and backsplash art ideas), etc. I'm so glad we didn't allow this designer to override our preferences. Trust your instincts. I hope it all works out for you.