Talking about color and the use of color in the garden is one of those things that tends to put people in defensive/hostile mode because it's difficult at times to clearly describe what exactly one means when talking about color and the use of color in the garden. So things get misinterpreted or overly simplified as each person brings their own biases and interests to interpret what was said. There is (an annoying :-) ) tendency in some quarters to dismiss color - particularly flowers - as a sort of frivolous, unimportant 'icing on the cake' element in designing a garden. That sort of dismissal of color irritates me greatly. But it also irritates me when the 'any color goes with any other' sort of line is thrown out as an oversimplification. Because the perception of a color can very much depend on what color it is partnered with. Change the partner and you change the effect. So, for me, how I use color in the garden/where I place a particular plant depends on what effect I want to create there. In my early gardening days I went through the polychrome 'anything goes' color phase but became unhappy with that because I began to see, as GP1 said above: ' "Too much color is the equivalent of no color at all". It becomes like a street lined with billboards each competing for attention and no color stands out. ' Now I try to think through what I need to do to create a desired color effect. I don't always get it right - and it can take years to gradualy change the plantings to get to where I want to go - but it has made a noticeable improvement (to me at least!) in my gardening outcomes. GP1 - as a trained artist, you (and the gardening artists in your neighbourhood) probably intuitively use color in your gardens to create desired effects whereas for plebes like me it's something that requires deliberate thought and 'misses the mark' more often! :-) Playing with color to create effects is fun - and not limited to gardening :-) Below is a picture of DH wearing a 'tumbling blocks' sweater I knit about 17 years ago. I was aiming for an 'autumn leaves' color effect. Not perfect by any means but it's still one of his favorite sweaters. The link below is to a Google image seach that shows other sweaters of the same design in different color combinations (the fifth one is DH's sweater....) so you can see how different the sweater looks depending on what colors are used and how they are combined. And that brings me to the issue of 'rules' and styles etc. 'Rule' is one of those words that also immediately gets one's back up because most of us don't particularly like the idea of being ruled! :-) Styles tend to imply a lack of originality - a 'follow the herd' sort of mentality and we all want to be thought of as individuals. But understanding what a particular 'rule' is trying to achieve, and the consequences of breaking it is useful when assessing whether it helps or hinders what you are trying to achieve. 'Rules' can be a sort of distilled 'wisdom'/short cuts that can be useful in getting you where you want to go without having to reinvent the wheel each time! Styles, in a gardening sense, are often a response to particular times, places, cultures environments, etc. Understaning why they are/were popular can be very useful in helping you decide which styles - or elements of a style - can be used or adapted to positive effect in your own garden. That's one of the reasons I like to read widely in garden history - the more I know, the clearer I see what appeals to me and how to achieve it. Certainly my interests and tastes have changed over time but change is a constant in the garden so I'm always looking for ideas that I can incorporate - harmoniously - in the garden. The constant that drives my garden is the desire for it to have a peaceful and harmonious feel while still being a vibrant space. Here is a link that might be useful: tumbling block sweaters

I wish there were more of us that would like to see the return of our venomous snakes, instead of the people that would not only kill them, but anything even slightly resembling one as well. Or any snake for that matter. In my part of southern Illinois there is much in the local history about the presence of rattlers. I guess the destruction/fragmentation of the prairies, combined with the systematic hunting down and destroying of any known den sites by 'do-gooders' were the main reasons you now have to go south to the Shawnee Forest and surrounding areas to find any rattlers. Same pretty well goes for the moccasins and copperheads, although they still have their holdouts. I was both shocked, pleased, and saddened all at the same moment when a neighbor brought me the head of a copperhead he had killed in his Franklin Co. yard. Shocked that it was actually a copperhead and not the usual northern water snake, pleased since this meant there must surely be others, and saddened that I had to document my first local sighting based on a decapitated head rather than seeing such a magnificent reptile living and breathing and threatening no one. In the years before we had city water, we relied on a small electric pump housed in a wooden structure that sat over two buried concrete tanks. Although the tanks have been sealed and out of use for years now, the pumphouse itself has had many tenants, most of them snakes. THis little structure was built to keep the lines and pump from freezing in the winter, and was complete with insulated walls and a socket for a heatlamp. THere is no longer power running to it, but the insulation and a southern exposure makes this a sure place to find snakes in the milder winter and spring, as well as cooler rainy periods in between. I used to store my dog food and bird seed there, knowing the 5 foot rat snake that called the place home would keep an eye on chipmunks and mice. It was a very docile creature; I don't think I ever recall it striking at me, even when I was checking daily to see how things were going with its skin shedding. I know they can't see that well when their eyes are clouded, but this snake never did get upset. Of course I went in slowly and gave it time to adjust to my presence. I was rewarded with a beautiful shed, retreived while still flexible and "damp", so that I was able to finish turning it completely inside-out. . Every scale is perfectly intact, even the one over the eye. Good luck with your plans to bring the snakes back...I hope you succeed.

The problem -- and one I might get an amusing story out of -- is that my neighborhood is a seaport, a ferry port (I bet some of our rats came from Alaska or Vancouver Island), and the former Cannery Row of Bellingham. Rats have thrived here for at least a hundred and fifty years, without the professional rat catchers making much of a dent. My main focus will be to tell homeowners how to keep them out of the house and how to harass them in the garden. Who knows, I might even discover a was to keep them out of the neighborhood altogether. (Yeah, sure. Maybe I should get a fife and pipe them out onto the tideflats at a minus tide.) An acquaintance had one come up through his toilet. He's now afraid to flush.

We are in Drenthe now for 4 days. This is a very forested area and then open veld lands. There are boards placed in different areas showing the flora and fauna that lives there. I took pics of two small lakes..one has a beach and lots of people go there to swim, the other was just a beautiful natural lake. Drenthe is known for the hundebed here. These are boulders that were pushed here by the Ice Age upheaval. The people of that time were able to stack them and make burial grounds with these huge boulders. I don't have a good pick of any as there were too many people around this AM...sigh...kids climbing on them which I personally do not like...also adults. I remember when we saw them 25 yrs ago it was frowned upon to climb on them as it was disrespectful...times change I guess. They are scattered everywhere in this country and others of Europe. Our B and B is a 100 yr old thatch roofed farmhouse in an apple orchard. It is amazing. The redo inside is incredible but we are in our own little apt. so I have no pics of her home. She has an Ikea kitchen too ! Every single home we have been to has had one. They love Ikea here. All bed linens and towels even the napkins come from there. Here are some pics of the B and B and from our bike ride this AM. We went 35 km to Borger and back here to Anderen. Oh also in one small village there was a man having part of his roof re-thatched. What a lost art and amazing work. I took some photos. The part you see that is done toward the right of the picture took 2 days...he said it would be a week to get the whole rear done. You see more thatched roofs here in Drenthe than you do anywhere else in Holland. It is VERY expensive to have it done . You can see in the next pics what new thatch and old look like. It fairly glows in the sun. I just love it. our garden seating area...we have several ! breakfast and dinner are here under the walnut tree another lovely breakfast..love the egg cozy! garden horse farm next door gardens views one of the many apple trees..they don't pick or use them anymore...both folks have had this B and B for 25 yrs and quite elderly now. there house...note the low huge windows..they are near the ground but are perfect for looking out from inside...a way of keeping the style of the house intact and yet making soaring ceilings inside..wish I could show you pics..I will perhaps ask if I can take some . another garden " room" ...all the Dutch garden in small rooms..I love love love it..so intimate small beachy lake wild natural one..you can guess which I like best ! nature board at the largest hundebed in the Netherlands thatching process bunches first up on the roof where he uses wire to tie it all together note the ladders used to ascend the roof a new one nearby see how light and an old one unusual detail I spotted on the way out of town... more on other days...thanks for looking and hope you enjoy.