One of my neighbors purchased a house that had been vacant for 7 years, and the garden not tended for many more. What she found was: A large area of blackberry thicket, out of which was growing and blooming 2 very old Madame Caroline Testout roses. They had climbed up a nearby plum tree to get light, and were also growing over the fence and onto the next door neighbor's roof of their one story house. A mature apricot tree right in the middle of the back yard - it was twisted and very old, but still bloomed and bore fruit. LOTS of volunteer trees - plums, eugenie, privet, and eucalyptus, to name a few. Also some huge pine trees on the perimeter, which had been there for ages. My garden was not abandoned, but little had been done to it for 20 years when we moved into our house. It had at least 50 surviving roses - most of the survivors were teas, hybrid wichuranas, or other really old roses. A couple of the teas had gotten huge - maybe 15 feet wide, and 8-9 feet tall. There were 5 surviving hybrid teas, but they had dwindled, and did not bloom (except for Cl La France, as noted below). The old old roses had gotten bigger, and bloomed a huge amount. Thornless (thank heavens!) blackberry had taken over an area at the back of the property about 20 ft square, and there was another area where volunteer fig and plum trees had made a sort of forest. That's where Cl La France had climbed up the trees, and was blooming and disporting itself in the canopy. Old bulbs were still coming up in the Spring, all over the garden. Jackie

Donna- What exactly is too close? Do they shade out the weeds or each other? How large are your paths? If you have wide paths and smaller beds, that's a different feel in a garden than narrow paths. With narrow paths, you might need to keep the edges more trimmed back, to feel like you have more space. Also, some veggies (like carrots) can be thinned as they grow, which keeps things from becoming too crowded. I'm still new to all this myself, but as long as the garden makes you happy, that's all that matters. If it feels a little too crowded, maybe thin a few things out or just plant a little further apart next year. I like to use alyssum under everything for a mulch. Not only does it shade out the weeds, but since it's so short, it doesn't feel as crowded as taller flowers might. If the weather this year is very unusual, then maybe that would account for it. Do you have any pictures?

if you can get ALL the soil and vegetation out, sure. It should work. But don't buy the hype about poly sand, if there's a means for weeds to germinate below you have a good shot of them coming up through your joints. And I'd definitely tighten the joints up as best you can, especially that monster joint in the foreground. Good luck!

Jenna, without getting into a protracted discussion about the word "tree" itself, I'm using it to describe a FORM, not a size .... that there are vertical bare trunk(s) and a raised portion of canopy full of branches, twigs and vegetation. There is no exact way to separate large shrubs from small "trees" other than what distills down to an arbitrary decision made by someone at some point. I imagine you've seen many lilacs with bare trunks and and a raised foliage canopy, so I'm calling that form a tree in spite of the fact that it might be 12' or 15' tall. A few examples of other such "shrubs" capable of being a tree at the smaller size range would be: burning bush & dwarf, panicle hydrangea, mock orange, Ligustrum, Viburnum, 'Burford' Holly and dwarf (many hollies actually), crape myrtle, beauty bush, Japanese Maple, larger Rhododendrons & Azaleas, Camellia, some Junipers, etc. I'm not saying all these grow where you are, but if you explore large shrubs for your area I'm sure there'll be a plentiful list to choose from. Avoid shrubs that sucker too much or have a hard time achieving height (like Forsythia.) Each plant delivers its own set of characteristics and demands which makes selecting them for a particular spot rewarding and fun. There are many large "shrubs" that bloom prolifically if that appeals. Others have great evergreen form. We couldn't see well the tree in your quarter-circle bed (maybe a Holly), but it looks like an example of the small tree/large shrub of which I speak. Naturally, since roots are relatively commensurate in size with the above ground portion of a plant, a small tree (that only gets 15' is going to have much smaller root system than a tree which gets 80 or 100'. Smaller "trees" are much friendlier to a house foundation. No reason to get rid of Irises and Hydrangea, but organize everything so that it doesn't look like clutter. In the suggestions I made there are shrubs (3' height) and perennials. Hydrangea and Irises could fit such spots. You pointed out and it is evident in the picture, the differing light conditions at one end of the house from the other. That might warrant different shrubs at the house than at the garage. One thing I neglected to mention is that the walk itself looks tired ... like it wasn't properly installed to begin with and time has worn it out. Maybe there's a redo. (You could save and reinstall the same material, possibly adding to it.) If so, it would be a perfect opportunity to take into account a small "tree" where the garage joins the house and bump out the walk in that spot. I can't tell from the pictures alone but it might be a possibility to bring the walk in front of the quarter circle bed and join that bed with the rest of the foundation planting. It's just something you'd work out on a plan in order to make sure that it was right before it was constructed.