WOW! And here I thought that no one replied... turns out I just never got any emails about the replies. Anyways, thanks to everyone who did reply for all the hints and tips. In the time that has passed I have walked with my landlord over the whole property and he's all for what I plan on doing here as he's been unlucky with his tenants to date not wanting to do any type of improving upon the aesthetics here. I can understand why the landlord hasn't put any type of money into the place as when we moved in last fall the whole back yard under all those nice shade trees was nothing but dirt. That's why the grass is so patchy back there. The tenant before us had 28 fox-hounds in a big caged in area under those trees... the area is almost completely filled in with grass that was seeded last fall, needs another seeding though. Now that I've had more of a chance to pay attention to just how much sun each area I plan to plant gets I now know better what to plant there. The back of the house gets quite a bit of sun actually, almost 6 full hours of afternoon sun whereas the front gets full morning sun. The place we chose for the veggie garden is in an area that gets sun from about 9am until dusk so it will have enough, plus it's close enough to the water hose! I've also identified some of the "bushes" that I didn't know when I originally posted this thread. There are two large groups of Common or American Elderberry (one that is crowding out my snowball bush) as well as some honeysuckle bushes, a large Mimosa tree that's just about to bloom and a straggly looking red Mulberry. It's difficult to tell at first whether some of the trees are Black Walnut or Tree of heaven but I figured it out as the BW has it's fruits developing. There are still two unidentified bushes but I'll figure it all out. Now that I've bored y'all with my uninteresting story I guess I should end this by saying that I will probably be posting photos of the design I finally chose for this large property. From what I've figured so far, the investment will be no more than about 2-3000. We are planning on staying here for quite a while... don't plan on moving until hubby's ready to retire (15 more years) and the landlord knows that if we do move most of what I plant will be moving with me. Especially the bulbs and anything easily transported to the new place. So once again, thanks for all the replies. ttfn Mystic.

Oh my! All such wonderful ideas! Didn't even think about growing up. I may have to do that through pots since I don't have any spaces big enough to hold enough dirt. Wonder if they make small rock containers?? or I might have to lurk on the 'garden junk' forum? Jeff..matter of fact I do have a hellebore at the top of the pond! Nan...I have moss growing on an old brick pathway in full sun...how can it be transplanted? Slice & stick? That would probably look good along the bordering rock. A little sedum stuck here and there between the rock...mmmmmmmm....sounds like a plan! Thanks guys! You're all great!! I'll try to post pics when I get it together. Evelyn

I really appreciate all of the replies that I have gotten. It was so nice to get some advice and encouragement and I can't wait to read and chat more with everyone. First of all, I was really surprised by the Round-Up stuff not working. It was the pre=mixed stuff and it surely did not work. Not only that but I went out in the front yard today and the dandilions are even bigger and taller now! I would like to get most of them out by hand, that is not a big deal, but a lot of them are in between my tulips and hosta plants in the front yard and they are surrounded by landscaping rocks so I may have to just remove those by hand with a smaller weeder. I was so happy today! I had my yonger brother and sister (17 and 14 respectively) and my little sister's boyfriend and my mom over and everyone helped me with the yard today! My brother mowed my lawn (he loves to mow for some reason) and my sister and her boyfriend helped clear out the leaves and junk off of my concrete patio while my mom and I raked the lawn of all the nasty decomposed leaves, twigs, branches, etc. And when all of that was done, my mom and sister and I planted a bunch of Morning Glories and Moonflowers along my privacy fence and then we put Impatiens along the back of the house, planted a couple of Dianthus Raspberry Parfait plants in pots in my back yard. Also in the back we planted bulbs for a couple of kinds of flowers. In the front my mom and I planted Begonias and Moss Rose plants. While my mom and I were planting those in the flower boxes in my front yard, some lady walked by with her kids and said, "Oh kids look at the pretty flowers!" and I was so excited. FINALLY my yard is looking nice enough that people are complimenting it. That hardest thing though is that my road is very busy and I get a lot of trash in my yard. It's so frustrating to try to keep up with getting the trash out of the yard. I think I might get an extra (small) garbage can to put by the fence so that I can just pick up trash and dump it in there. I really appreciate all the suggestions and feel better about everything now that I have made a substantial amount of progress and that I know I will not be able to get rid of all the weeds right away and that not all of the work is going to get done immediately. But the fresh air and exercise is good for me and the sun is good for me too according to my Dr. :) It was encouraging, too, to hear someone say that they got some good exercise gardening and congratulations on your weight loss! It must have taken some hard work! Thanks again and look forward to posting more soon!

Hi Heather, I apologize if my comments are redundant since I didn't read through all the previous comments. We have 5 kids, and we have a similar upstairs loft type set up, but ours doesn't have the open railing along it. We have a 2 story great room similar to yours, and the railing is open between the foyer and the great room. We like the 2 story great room, although it can be challenging to decorate. One thing that we did that I love was make the "cat walk" the upstairs hallway overlooking the great room and the foyer extra wide. Ours is 8 feet wide. It makes that hallway feel less scary with openings on both sides, and it feels welcoming. I know this is personal preference, but with kids, I would close off the overlook from the loft to the great room. I'm imagining that you are giong to use that loft space for toys and video games, etc., and it is nearly impossible to keep that looking nice at all times. Plus, the noice traveling down will be difficult to control. Also, my kids have thrown or accidentally dropped things from the "cat walk" which is around the corner from the loft (like your set up) to the great room. I know that there would be many more things being thrown over if that railing were open all the way around. The other things I was wondering about was your 1st floor laundry room. In our house, the kids generate the most amount of laundry, and it is a TON. Our laundry is upstairs and it makes it so much more convenient to gather up their clothes and put them away. I couldn't imagine hauling baskets and basekets of clothes up and down the stairs. The other thing I agree with are the windows in the kitchen. I'd try to get more natural light in the kitchen, and have windows on the wall with the fridge (since they aren't covered by a 4 season room). I worry that your kitchen will be dark otherwise. Finally, since your dining room is your main and only dining area where you will put a table, I wonder if you'd want to have a sight line from there to the great room. We have only one main dining area as well, and I know it's nice for us to be able to have a sight line into the great room. Although we start dinner as a family, kids start taking off/wandering off while we're still eating since it takes the adults awhile to eat since we don't sit down from running around untile everybody is practically done. Anyway, as much as we'd like everybody to sit at the table the entire time and engage in lenghty dinner conversation, the reality is that we're just glad that we got everyone around the table for some part of dinner and that we can still keep an eye on them in the family room and feel like we're still having dinner together. Anyway, best of luck. It looks like it's going to be a wonderful home.