Round-up kills pretty much everything that's green: weeds, grass, etc. Grass usually only dies from too much sun when it doesn't get enough water. Most of your better seed comes from independent seed sellers, not the big box stores. Many people source their seed via the internet. Choosing what type of grass to grow is up to you, and what you think would do best in your environment. Since this is a spring seeding, and you live in the city, tall fescue might be your best option. Kentucky bluegrass produces nicer turf in my opinion, but it is much better suited to a late summer seeding since it takes longer to germinate and mature. Perennial rye is the fastest to maturity, but it can be a bit thirstier.

Don't have wood betony, but have experience with big betony. Just (couple of days ago) chopped up a big betony, replanted a bit and potted up the rest to overwinter outside. Had no problem doing this previously. Don't know if wood betony is equally hardy here.

Hi Jen, yes, what you are referring to is commonly called 'lasagna gardening' and you can find a ton of stuff on the internet on this. There are a few ways you can do this. One is to mark the area to be made into a garden with a hose or spray paint or flour, anything. Then spray the area with a product like Roundup, per label directions, being careful not to get the Roundup or have it drift on a windy day onto any desirable plants. You can read about how roundup works by doing a google search. many gardeners consider it a somewhat benign product. (But there is a better way, read all the way to end.) After a couple weeks I think (read the label) all will be dead and you can start your layering with cardboard or newspaper (wet it well) and cover with organic matter or compost or hay or straw (one has more of a chance for seeds to come up - hay? I think) which will decompose over a season. Many people put the layers down in fall and garden is ready in spring. It takes a few months. On the other hand, some people plant right in the organic matter. you can definitely plant into compost. The key to planting right away is to build the garden up to a raised bed or mound, and plant things that are not needing to go very deep right away. Like annuals or perennials. If, like me, you don't like to use chemicals of any kind, you can just mow the area very short and then lay your cardboard, newspaper, organics etc without first applying a herbicide. I like this way best. The key is to make sure the papers overlap and there are no little cracks for the weeds to come thru, they will find any little bit of sunlite. If you have ever laid a bag of soil or mulch down on grass and come back to move it a few days later, you can see that it kills the grass from lack of light. Laying old carpet down will kill the grass underneath too, but then you would have to come and lay on the orgamic matter which is so important to healthy plants. Sorry so long, hope this helps.

After some long discussions with York reps and with Honeywell (who does the zoning equipment), I think (if the HVAC guy doesn't come down on price) I may have them run 2 trunks in the basement, and feed the appropriate ducts into each. i.e. have all the 1st floor ducts go into the trunk for the 1st floor and the 2nd floor ducts into the trunk for the 2nd floor. Then have them put in a manual damper near the beginning of each trunk, and have them run a thermostat wire upstairs for future use. I can't imagine this would be much more work than what they're planning on doing anyway. Remember the main plenum/trunk isn't even run yet. That way I can go the first year and see how bad the temp differential is between floors. And I could simply manually adjust the dampers each season (likely close off the 1st floor by a certain percentage) so that more or less air flow goes where I need it. If it doesn't work out, or if it does but my manual adjusting is too much work, I can do the zoning in the future without too much more cost, since the trunks are already done. I figure at that point, they'd just have to add the zoning panel, hook up the 2nd floor thermostat, add the auto dampers etc. And at that point, I could at least have some other HVAC guys come in and get some competition and different ideas. Thoughts on this approach?