I saw the response to your post on the Container Forum but I was wondering if you might try involving him in your gardening? Maybe give him a pot of his own to take care of. He can plant some sunflower seeds or something that sprouts quickly and you might even eventually be able to put him to work "helping". ;-) Start 'em young I say!

Make sure you are using the third address which is the HTML address and begins Then you have to give a title such as my pool ir flower beds or just link Welcome and you will soon be invited to a swap and then the trouble begins as you will go home with so many plants and you do not have to bring any as we gardeners love to share. You have found a bunch of enablers here who will have you reguesting dirt, mulch and plans or presents instead of clothes etc. Wait a minute - I always need clothes and jewels - yeah - clothing in the form of a gardening apron and clogs and a hat and jewels in the form of orchids and gingers and lilis and uh I think you get the picture. Welcome. Another plant you never want near your pool is bouginvilla. I had pineapples growing near mine and got to eat the fruit and dracanea with violas planted aound it ad they did not get into the pool. I just love plnats and enabling others to get more More MORE Linda

I'll reinforce some of the others' suggestion, and maybe change some. If you're looking for the cheapest possible way to create a landscape, try the following: Go to your library and check out some books on garden design. While you're there, get one or two about plant propagation. Read, read, read. Take notes. Plan on paper. Keep in mind when you plan that what you're planning isn't cast in stone. If the yard is completed slowly -- to accomodate your budget -- then you'll have plenty of time to change your mind. And in the end, there's something very satisfying about seeing a plan become a reality. Also, it's not necessary to buy nice paper or colored pencils. Printer paper and crayons work just fine. Or notebook paper (you can draw lines the other direction to make a grid and use the grid to approximate space in your yard so you're not overplanning the space). And if you have a computer, that's even better: I don't know about Macs, but the IBM version of the Windows operating system comes with a very basic program called Paint which works just fine, and you can change the layout to your hearts content without throwing away a scrap of paper. If your soil is heavy, start collecting leaves and plant material scraps *now* and create impromptu compost piles. Get stuff from your neighbors: grass clippings, fallen leaves, trimmings, etc. If your yard is unplanted you have plenty of room to create piles for composted material. With time, patience, a lot of hard work, some indulgence from your neighbors, and a few large and unsightly piles, you can have a decent amount of soil amendment for cheap or free. (Though you may have to compost for as much as a year to generate enough for your purposes). I definitely second the getting-cuttings-from-your-neigbors approach. Or drive (or walk) around town and find plants that really strike your fancy instead of limiting your selections to your neighbor's tastes. And make sure you understand propagation (getting and using cuttings) before you go, not just so that the cuttings survive and thrive, but in case the owner of the plant you lust after takes some convincing because they don't understand propagation and need it explained that what you're after won't damage their plant. For pots to grow cuttings in, yogurt containers work fine, and you can pot up to gallon milk containers when you need to. The things that will be tough to find for cheap or free are the hardscape items. One recomendation I have is for mulch paths (or mulch in general): you can usually get mulch from power companies when they have to cut down brush or trees for maintenance purposes. If you tell them you want the mulch from the next job, they'll make it and drop it free of charge (or exceptionally cheap), though you have to be willing to accept an unknown (usually large) amount and you'll have no control over the timing. If you're worring about getting too much, try making arrangements with your neighbors for taking any excess off your hands. With patience, time and (sometimes huge) effort, you can have a nice landscape for the price of rooting hormone, soil-less sterile mix (for the cuttings) fertilizer, and some hardscape materials. Now, you may not want to go about it in this bare-bones a manner, but I took my suggestions to the extreme just as a reminder that landscapes do not need to be store-bought and expensive. Good luck!

A blank slate is the most fun! & you don't have to wait for spring. In fact your garden will thank you if you start improving your soil now, & you'll have far less backbreaking work to repeat if you sketch out your design beforehand. SOIL: Our DFW soils are usually heavy alkaline clay, & a lot of it has been depleted from cotton-growing days & 60 or so years of chemical-dependent agriculture/landscaping/lawn care. Soil needs nitrogen like coffee grounds, grass clippings, & kitchen scraps, & carbon like autumn leaves. You can pick up used coffee grounds at most Starbucks; just ask them if they have some "Grounds for the Garden". Occasionally you'll find a franchise shop, like the ones inside Kroger stores, that doesn't participate in the corporate program, but don't let it discourage you; just go to another Starbucks! I've been picking up other people's bagged leaves (OPBL) for years now. Just look along the curbs or alleys of wooded neighborhoods on the nights before trash pick-up, & you'll find tons of wonderful leaves, all bagged up foryou. & feeding the soil doesn't have to be rocket science; just sling that stuff all over the place or pile it all up, & nature will do what she's been doing since the beginning. You might get a soil test just to be sure there aren't any weird conditions like lead or something; other than things like that, your soil analysis is likely to be "alkaline clay, would benefit from the addition of compost". DESIGN: One summer when I couldn't sleep at night, I kept a spiral notebook in my bedside table. Around midnight or so, I'd turn the lamp on & draw out landscape plans for the back yard. I haven't actually *done* the landscape back there (I'm waiting for the dogs to finish digging it all up, snork!), but I have a much better grasp of how the space lies, what "proportion" means, & how different features relate to each other. FAIRY GARDENS: Lucy Harrell (Harrel?), of Ladies of the Garden, says that all fairy gardens need a dead tree, so you can grow vines over it & a little girl can slip into the secret green space inside. Have fun creating your garden on that blank slat! & keep an eye on the swap thread & let me know if you see anything on my list that you'd like!