Not many groundcovers will survive a lot of traffic like grass can. Some will survive salt burn better than grass though. You might want to try what I did in my backyard (part shade) with weak grass. IN the bare stretches of the lawn tacked down a green snow fence material (to be used like a poor mans geotextile fabric) and let the grass grow up through it. This gave the dog something to get traction on instead of divoting the lawn. PS- I like the woodland garden look

Interesting that you should suggest pea gravel, Charlene. This is a very old home (or very old for us Westerners). At one time, this area was a driveway. To the south of the trees, I once put in a flower bed. Kind of a mistake, it was pure pea gravel. Apparently that was what a previous owner decided to use as the driveway surface. Of course, it was a better choice for a future lawn than crushed rock would have been . . . I guess. Not a very good place for snapdragons and such. Perhaps the pea gravel was only placed in that one area. There's really no evidence of it under the trees. It seems to me that the real problem with the grass is the shade rather than the traffic. The traffic was worse a few years ago but I didn't notice any real thinning of the lawn until last year. The shade from the trees must have finally reached some intolerable level for the grass. Like a middle-aged man's hair - it is now going fast. Jaliranchr, it was your conversation with Bpgreen which made me think that there is some lawn expertise here on the forum that I could tap. I actually took a look at wheatgrass before the initial posting and decided that it must have real benefit for high pH soil and of not much help in shade. Our soil is alkaline but this is a very old residence as I said (over 100 years). Water is fairly cheap and certainly we haven't been very thrifty with it on this ground. It's likely that the pH is quite a bit lower than native soil  which does very well growing Kentucky Blue Grass. The linked turf grass info is very informative and it looks like fine fescues are the way to go. Unfortunately, the planting date recommendations (late April to late September) are completely outside of the time when we can keep it untrodden. For the next 6 months, we could essentially never set foot on it once. It's currently a rapidly thinning KBG lawn so I think I'll pick up some fescue seed and organic lawn fertilizer this weekend and weÂll see what it looks like next Spring. Thanks for the comments on the flowers. It was the cutting garden's last hurrah about 2 or 3 weeks ago. What a haul! Steve

We learned the pea gravel trick from the place where we board our dogs when we travel - County Club Kennels (I often wonder who has the better time on vacation). When the kennel first started they had a lot of mulch which sticks to the dogs - they switched to pea gravel which works great. If you have dogs who don't like getting their toes wet when it rains, a covered area with the pea gravel on the floor works wonders. We designed a side roof to extend out about 10 feet to create a 200 square foot pooch porch area. It has 4' high stoned outter walls and is screened in with pea gravel for the flooring and doors that lead into the utility room (where the dogs sleep) and the garage. I also had hose bib with hot and cold water put in that area so we can wash them down when they get trashed on walks. When it snows I no longer have to run outside and shovel a path for the dogs to find their spot, rain is not an issue either since their area is covered. When the weather is nice we leave the door that opens from the utility room into the pooch porch area so they can leave their sleeping area and go outside whenever they want. Since the pooch porch is screened in, no bugs get in the house. I used the vegetable garden fencing as a temporary pen when we were renting a house during our build and it worked great. I used 3 foot high fencing (my dogs are small) but they make several different heights. I used a metal pole about every 4 to 6 feet to make sure it was strong enough to withstand 3 dogs with paws up on the top of the fence when squirels were in the area which they would love to chase after. I think it took about 30 minutes to put the pen up and the cost was under 75 dollars. When we moved out of the rental I took the pen down in 5 minutes. We learned in our last house that dog urine will kill grass so the pea gravel might be a good long term solution for you. If you go that route - use a 4 to 6 inch base of pea gravel and put the landscape fabric down first to keep mud from perculating up.

Vinmarks - our contractor and plumber said that our 20 gpm was good, so I would think your 30 gpm is good, too. I have no clue about the rest of it. I think it means your well is 585' and you have 80' of water (static water level), but I may be wrong. Amber - your fireplace is very pretty! CP - any updates on your issues? DH and I spent 3 hours with the cabinet maker yesterday. We already had our layout from an earlier meeting, so this was to finalize selections. Cabinet maker wanted me to pick out hardware so they could order samples to make sure it's really what I want. I wanted black hardware in the kitchen. After 2 hours, we finally settled on something from Top Knobs, the pull is black, but the knob is "matte black". No single manufacturer had a pull and knob in black that we liked... or if we found a pull we liked, it didn't come in black (that was the case for almost everything we found). They're ordering a sample of each plus the cabinet latch (we could only find black that we liked from Van Dyke's) so we can see them, but I don't think I'll be changing my mind. Wiring for the alarm system and cameras is finishing up today. Hopefully the other subs will be finishing up in the next couple weeks so insulation and sheetrock can start.