Thanks laceyvail. The houses faces S - SW. The foundation wall in the pic is not connected to the house directly. There is about 5 or 6 feet of open space behind that wall which was previously a porch that was closed in. I was planning on about a 3 foot wide/deep section and planting in the middle of that. I would probably have to look at pics of what you're saying about stopping the Boxwoods at the end of the house and planting something else in front of the stones. That will give me a better understanding of how it would look. thanks for the suggestion. I would really like to keep it simple... We'll see. I'll google more pics for now. Hey I found "boxwoods" already. I can find more. lol thanks again. PS I thought about the tree in the past, but I'm not so sure. It would look nice from the house looking out through the window... It's such a small lawn though... I really want to cover up that foundation wall and stones and make them look as one.

I totally missed the 1 gallon tank thing in the initial post. My apologies for being illiterate and blind. A 1-gallon tank will require a 100% water change weekly. To do less will result in ammonia buildup which will burn and then kill your fish. To do a water change, do the following: 1. Lure Fishie to the surface, then scoop him into a small cup. Cover him and set aside. Make sure he can't jump out. 2. Look at your thermometer and remember the temperature. Dump the water in the tank. Get scalding hot water going from your tap and rinse/scrub all decorations including substrate and the sides of the tank. 3. Adjust the water so that it matches the temperature of the original water. I basically let my tap run and stick my thermometer underneath the stream until the temperature is juuuuust right. A fluctuation of 2 degrees in water will shock a betta. I try to be as accurate as possible. Put dechlorinator and whatever additives you want in your tank (like aquarium salt). Fill with water. Add substrate and decorations. 4. Acclimate Fishie to the new water. Add a bit of the new water to his cup, then float it in the tank for 5 minutes. Keep adding new water until there is more new water than old. Finally, let him swim into his new, clean environment. All in all, this shouldn't take more than 15 minutes for the change, and another 15 for the acclimation.

Thank you to all for the help. I'm not sure if I picked the best plant for under the shrub but I did wind up selecting plants. For the small yellow ones under the shrub I went with Bucket of Gold Perennial Alyssum. Some photos looked like too much blooms, others looked exactly like the photo above. It'll do for now and I can easily change those later. The first image in this blog post is what made me chose it. I went with a siberian iris for the spiky foliage look. Ken, The area in front of the arborvitaes is about 4' x 14'. I didn't get that much input on my general post for help designing the bed so as I started to understand more I created more specific threads, like this one, that focused on a single element I tried to incorporate. Some of the other images I posted in the other threads had dimensions.

Welcome Redsox, As to cutting scapes, different people do different things I guess. I'm an avid deadheader (cut off spent blooms daily) so, while in the process of removing spent blooms if there's a scape that has bloomed out (no more buds) and doesn't have a pod or prolif that I want on it, then I cut it to the ground at that time. I'm a neat freak I guess, and don't like the look of the bare scapes sticking out of my dl's. Some people leave them till they turn brown and are easily pulled out. As for the foliage, I only cut mine if I move them or if I have a bad outbreak of rust, other wise the foliage stays till it dies back in the winter, then I remove the dead foliage to help keep down disease, etc. Jan