Wow, thank you for all your suggestions. I'm thinking it must be a box or privet honeysuckle. My plan is to cut it down to about a foot (as someone indicated above). Over the years, as it grew, the owners just trimmed the side of the shrub so that it wouldn't block the path on the side of the house. So it just grew higher and higher and now has started leaning over the path. So now it's just an annoyance and gets beat up on by anyone walking down the path. Knowing what it is I can now get it healthy and healthy-looking again. Thank you again! Your efforts are much appreciated. flora uk: there are some red leaves on top that have fallen from a nearby japanese maple, but it's all just the honeysuckle in the photo.

Sluggo works very well and is safe for use around kids and pets. One of the more eco-friendly of the available slug/snail controls. I grow lots of plants in containers and have little problem with them and slugs, although conditions can vary widely. One method to deter them from containers is to run a band of copper tape along the inside of the container lip with a slight edged exposed on the top - copper and slugs don't mix well :-)) Lady ferns, Athyrium, are herbaceous and will dieback in late fall and with the onset of cold weather. Some species/cultivars are slower to do this than others and will hold on to green fronds well into the winter, but they never look good and I recommend cutting them back. But there are lots of evergreen ferns to choose from as well. Polystichum polyblepharum or tassel fern is one of my favorites with glossy, deep green fronds year round that look almost like they have been polished. I'd also recommend that you consider larger containers - I consider an 18" diameter pretty much a minimum for any kind of significant mixed container planting. Most local retail nurseries have pot recycling bins for discarded black nursery pots and you can often find a good selection of larger sizes in spring as the planting crush hits. This is a good source of very inexpensive (free!) containers to use until you feel comfortable investing in more decorative ones. They tend not to dry out as fast in summer as terra cotta ones do and are far more durable through winter. For smaller pots, a single plant type is often very effective. In your situation, I'd consider hostas - they are dramatic as a container plant and IME, far safer from slug damage in a container than in the ground. FWIW, you can grow anything, including small trees, in a container provided you provide the correct size and appropriate care. Visiting local nurseries and investigating their offerings for shade or part shade should provide all sorts of possibilities. Many of these will also offer classes in container design as well with many helpful tips, as this is one of the fastest growing aspects of hobby gardening.

Jane, yours is a wild cherry, Prunus serotina, not buckthorn. It doesn't have the prominent leaf veins on the leaf underside that buckthorn has, and the edges of the leaf are finely toothed unlike buckthorn's smooth leaf edge. The cherries have their own stem with nothing but cherries on them rather than the buckthorn's many small stems for berries off of the main woody stem/branches. If you open one up you will recognize small cherry pits, and there is a bitter cherry taste if you are brave (I think buckthorn has 2 or 3 seeds.) One of the keys is the small lines in the bark (technically lenticels) on the cherries, where the lenticels on the buckthorn are dots. The other key factor for me is when you scratch cherry twig bark it smells like almonds, while the buckthorn has its own distinctive odor that isn't easily described, but definitely isn't almond. My memory is also that the buckthorn fruits have a clear yellowish flesh under the dark skin, while cherry fruits have the dark stain in the flesh in the same way commercial cherries do. Prunus serotina is native, and while it can be messy (the fruit stains as you would expect cherry to do) and it does seed around some, it doesn't IME outcompete and choke out other plants as buckthorn can do. Here is a link that might be useful: Prunus serotina, wild black cherry

Yay, can't wait to see your pool filling with H2O! I will sound like a broken record and say you will love the Aqua Blue PS! Glad you get to see the PS going in...cool process. Ours did have a tiny green tint until the chemicals were added and equip. turned on. After that, the great blue color came through and it was like, WoW !! After your pool is full, call CCP and tell them and they will send out the "start up" guy from NW Pools. He will turn on equipment, get your chemicals in and do some basic stuff with you......he will also bring you a lot of goodies, be ready to brush the PS a lot! Then 3-5 days later you will have Pool School. You have to call and schedule it for a time that is best for you. The start up guy will give you a letter with names and numbers on it so you know who to call. It was a great 2 hours spent with "scott" from NW Pools. He was very imformative about everything. He answered all our questions about everything from balancing chemicals to sealing our travertine! He will bring you a packet of information as a guide to go by. Be ready to take a lot of notes....he will give you some names of chemicals to use and not to use and good places to buy things and when you need to buy name brand and when you can get by with a "generic" type. So for the first month, someone from NW Pools will take care of your pool, come out weekly and balance chemicals and then after 3 weeks, they will come back out to add all the salt. You do not have to buy any of the start up chemicals for the first month or the salt....they provide it. After that, I believe it's all yours!!!! We still have to wait about 1.5 weeks before we get our salt added....we are ready for it....I'm tired of the chlorine smell already! ALSO: Make sure you ask lots of questions to the Pool School guy. We forgot to ask him about 10 things we now are curious about. He said to call him anytime, so we will be doing that next week. I dont know if this is true for all PB's, but since we are using the same PB, I can help you out Wingosh.....not sure about other's. Thanks for the names of your carpenter. I may give them a call later this fall and get a bid. How big of a patio are you doing? We just need the structure, not the concrete. Hope this helps you!!!! Janet