Cross referencing with your other thread, it seems your walkway is flared at both ends. From your drawing here I thought it wasn't. OK, so you aren't going to re-pour it, and I wouldn't either. If you were, I would not make that corner a right turn, but rather redraft the whole thing into a more gradually curvy swoosh reaching further down the driveway. You could leave the narrow bed by the garage wide enough for something, but to be honest, I think even with a redo I really would just pave to the wall - fill in the whole bed. Plants don't like growing in that situation anyway. With what you have I would tend towards a concept that works for me in my narrow beds: Basically a container gallery with plants at their feet. You could fill in the whole bed with pavers and put in a killer container gallery, or make it a container gallery among plants like mine. Your plants can be a single ground cover or a collection like hostas, hellebores, etc. In short, a bed like this only avoids being a plant line-up with a LOT of hardscape (can include wall art). If you really don't want containers, then study columnar conifers. Say, Taxus media 'Flushing,' Taxus baccata 'Golden Dwarf,' and the other usual suspects. Very structural stuff, including anything smaller you put in and can prune fairly flat (Cephalotaxus might be cool like that, has great foliage up close). But stay as far back from the door as you can with anything tall or wide. I would not do vines here. I would do structure. Structure is really missing from all the plants you have there too. Indeterminate blobs. You need big leaves. But I'm suggesting containers because to me your yard really needs hardscape. I know you have rocks, but they echo what I think is a bit of a design failing IN your beds (never mind their shape for a moment): kind of a tendency toward... spots? That captures what I don't like in your narrow bed now, what I don't like about the rose bed (and sorry, I hate those plants anyway - more indeterminate blobs with small leaves), and what I don't like about the rocks you've got. Plop. That's kind of the way I see a lot of those placement decisions. Collecting your boulders into groups might be much better. Collecting your plants into groups would too. I know all this doesn't address overall design, but that narrow bed isn't likely going to be part of any overall design anyway as it doesn't have "line" connection with anything you might do on the property (unless you can apply Woody's idea of running lines across the walkway...). I still like Woody's drawing but as far as overall design is concerned, I LOVE pls's concept. I wonder what would happen if you erased all the beds you've got and tried to sketch that out. Maybe boulder rearrangement could be guided by this concept at least. And it might enable you to keep some of the house wall clear. So I'm rambling a bit, sorry. Yes, I see bed shape as a problem here, but I think bed design/planting scheme is also contributing to the whole composition not working. Focal points, structure, hardscape, garden furniture... I think that is where you will need to go once you have bed shape worked out. It is not only plants that contribute balance, unity, repetition, etc. Actually now that I think about it, my plant zoo is actually irrelevant to my yard's design. I could move all my plants into different positions tomorrow, and the overall impression the yard makes would remain the same based on the hardscape alone. I think you are expecting the plants to BE your design, and that is maybe the fatal flaw. Karin L

OMG I had the same problem! I purchased 2 white pekins from the same store and raised them both the same way. (get ready for a long story) Jennie, has never had one single issue. Ferdie is another story. First, he developed a vitamin d difficiency. I was adding vitamins to the water and giving them whole crushed hard boiled eggs too. Then I found out it was the medicated feed. Make sure you DO NOT feed your ducks medicated feed. When I switched him from the medicated feed to the game bird starter he got much much better.tho he started acting drunk. He was having trouble preening, he waddled so badly he could hardly run, he was super-clumsy, he would stand and walk with his neck tucked to his chest. I searched all over the web for the symptoms to diagnose this problem, and the closest thing to it was that he hurt his leg. That was the only thing I could find that halfway matched his symptoms. Then about two weeks later, because of his un-coordination, he got stuck in his little swimming pool for hours and hours while I was away from home. The next day he was standing up straighter, walking with a little less trouble, his neck straightened out, he looked like he was improving! I don't know what caused his "drunkeness' but it seems to be going away. I will keep you updated. Let me know if you find something. I find it hard to believe that a slipped tendon made him "drunk".

Notice the announcement at the top of each Discussions or Conversations page, in red. GW tells what's going on and how to get around it until the problem is solved. YesScript is still working for me.

I have to say despite the way we kids (my brothers and sister) had to grow up we all did better for our own kids once we started having them. None of them (my nieces,nephews and my own 2 daughters) had to go through what we did. They all have drunk free parents and were put as a priority in their family. We knew how it felt so we didn't want to put our own children through it I guess. One thing we (my brothers and sister) all do suffer from though is we do not sleep through the night. We usually wake up sometime in the early morning and find it hard to get back to sleep. I think it is because dad would go on his drunken tyrants many times light at night and come yelling into our rooms waking us up. So we all became light sleepers. But other then that we have all turned out to be productive, happy people that are close nit. You can either choose to let drunks beat you down or rise above them and do better in your own life. We all chose to be better then my dad. NancyLouise