What are the tasks that you most love to do in the garden? Your transformed garden will accentuate the things you love to do and try to diminish the tasks you don't like so much. You may have to get creative about how you keep your favorite activities in the picture. Will you need to upgrade paths or stairs? Handrails or gripping posts in strategic locations? A graded slope instead of steps? What can / can't be changed to improve your ability to use the garden in the ways you most enjoy? The benefits of gardening are still out there--lowered blood pressure, exercise, keeping the spirit-mind-body thing whole. And we will go to amazing lengths to do the things we enjoy. If you love planting thingsÂevery yearÂbut you can see that getting down on your knees to plant a dozen flats of favorite annuals just isn't going to cut it for much longer, then think how you can satisfy that love. Raised beds, container displays, and hanging baskets come to mind. Also, you might upgrade to a spacious potting table, at just the right height, with all your tools conveniently to hand Here's a funny one for you. I love to sweep. Yeah, the blind gal likes the rhythmic methodical corraling of debris off the patios in back. Because I'm blind, and because I've always hated loud motors, I don't really want anything to do with motorized blowers. They turn me instantly into Helen Keller, blind and deaf. SoÂI don't yet need to plan a garden where someone else takes over a chore that I like to do. Create your own special space. I'm presuming that you will follow the general suggestions to think through your overall landscape design and to move toward more shrubs, small ornamental trees, and types of perennials of the reliably less demanding order. Since there is no such thing as a garden that can be put entirely on automatic pilot, this shift in design and plant material may give you plenty to do. But you may want to incorporate or accentuate an area or two that will work especially well for you. It might be a shaded meditation spot with some seating in it that is particularly kind to your body. Maybe the same area has a raised bed nearby which allows you to sit on the edge of the bed and fuss with the plants there. Or maybe you could shift from being a general plantaholic to becoming a tulip nut, or daylily crazy, or a hosta fanatic. There's something to be said for these old workhorses. They'll come up in pots, raised beds, or dirt piles in the driveway. There are endless varieties to collect and grow. If you've done your homework in converting your overall landscape to less maintenance, then you might find a focus on a particular plant a fun way to keep your passion for collection satisfied. Hope this helps. Wellspring

Lots of furniture stores have them. I use them for compost bins, wood for raised beds, garden fences, etc. I now take them apart and use the wood in many ways. Often, screws instead of nails are used so I end up with lots of useable hardware as well. Since we have a wood stove, broken unused pieces and extras are utilized as well. We have an old stove top oven and it's fun on a Sunday afternoon to roast a chicken using the heat from free wooden pallets to both keep us warm and to cook our dinner. Talk about frugal.

I hope you don't mind a comment on the next step after collection: When you try to germinate them, keep in mind that these are tiny seeds. I received a packet of them and they didn't start to germinate (I think) at first because I used my usual seed planting technique and pushed them 1/2 to 1 inch into the soil, then covered them. Then I heard that tiny seeds and small seeds need to be just barely covered with dustlike particles in order to germinate. I had read this but ignored it before. So I roughed up the soil and now they are coming up.If anyone wants these packets they are from Botanical Interests. kamala

I'm finishing off a 65' long french drain by topping it with a dry stream bed. I've covered the 57 gravel with more landscape cloth and then "river jacks". I suspect that there are various sizes of river rocks that can be call "river jacks" and my supplier has delivered two tons of rocks that range from small and round, larger flat and round and quite a few larger flat stones. If I order what they call 1-8" creek gravel it looks like very small to bigger (I guess 8"). Of course we're talking about a natural rock product and there probably will never be absolute consistency (this ain't Disney Land!) unless you spring for much higher priced hand-picked specialty rocks. Anyway, I've tried to find out why river jacks are called river jacks. And I'd love to know where they are "quarried". Anyone able to shed some light? Here's a photo of my delivery of river jacks. I've started to distribute them and realize that once I get the bigger ones placed I will be able to see how much they've covered and rearrange them to be as natural as I can manage. Then fill in with what I've got left (if any) and may need to get some of the 1-8" creek gravel to fill in for a fuller natural look and try to add some curves since there is only one since it started out as a much needed solution (french drain) for storm water runoff. I also plan to add some large round rocks from my rock collection to enhance the natural stream bed look.