Since it is a city project the replenishment of your lawns should be done by city staff in a prescribed by you time and usually, city departments will work with homewners to satisfy what was before. Do talk to them before they attack your garden by phoning the roads department; make them aware that you are not going to accept just anything they think to replace your yard with.

Oh! Building nests! I hadn't thought of that. It makes perfect sense. There's a catbird building a nest in a nearby shrub. I guess I can wait, then. It's only happening in one area, directly below the nesting shrub, and only on the newest part of the moss. The bird must think it's a gift, lol... Thanks, lycopus! Much appreciated.

Alexis, Congratulations on the new house! What a great adventure you and your DH will have doing all the landscaping and garden building after you get settled into your new home, Your garden looks so lovely right now---it would break my heart to have to yank it out, but sometimes you have to make tough decisions like that. You'll have a lovely garden next year and every year thereafter. I assume you're going to disassemble all the raised beds y'all built and take them and your great soil mix with you? That will give you a great head start on the new garden. Look at it this way---the 100 degree days are arriving this week in the parts of OK that haven't already started hitting 100 degrees and once they arrive, the plants begin to struggle in the endless heat, so the garden productivity would start dropping off anyhow. That fact ought to make tearing out the garden somewhat less heartbreaking. I do hope you tear out your tomato plants last thing so that you can harvest as much as possible from them. Remember that any tomatoes that make it to the breaker stage will color up fine and taste great, so pick and save all those when it is time to take out the plants. What a wonderful adventure you two are about to embark upon. I have such fond memories of our first home and how much fun we had not only with furnishing and decorating our home, but also with landscaping it, planting fruit trees and berries, and putting in our veggie and herb gardens and flower beds. So many wonderful decisions lie ahead for y'all and I know the two of you will create an awesome landscape and garden around your home. Keep us posted on how its going. Have you broken the news to your dog that he's going to have a much larger yard? I bet he'll love it. Dawn

Well I am finely getting around to look for someone to fix my parging. I had someone at my house today. They said they would hammer the parging as this will remove the pieces that need to be removed. Then place wire mesh and apply new parging all over. He also suggested that I fix the cracks in my stucco. He would patch the areas. The house is white stucco above the parging. The new white stucco will not match. I know nothing about parging or stucco. Could someone please tell me if this sounds like the way to do the parging and stucco. He offered a 5 year warranty. Thank you.