About the sun/shade issue - if you have deciduous shade, lots of minor bulbs will bloom and die back before the trees leaf out. I grow Scilla Siberica, Ipheon, Chionodoxa, Fritillaria Meleagris & many others including Tete a Tete (small daffodils), under low branched Crabapple trees. They get enough sun to bloom just fine and multiply. So you may be able to carry more bulbs from one side to the other than you think. As for the design issues you mentioned, I have often made new beds in the fall, planted them with bulbs and mulched them, and then added perennials the next spring. One trick I have learned is that if, and it's a big if, you know the basic layout of the bed, you can plant empty upside down nursery pots into the bed, where they major players are going to be. Push the upside pots deep into the soil and then plant your bulbs around them. I usually leave enough room bare around the pots so that I can easily work with a shovel when planting the perennials in the spring. You can also stake out large areas for large plants or shrubs. You can even get fancy and use a different color or kind of mulch to remind you where things are or are going to be. Just make sure to trail the bulbs around these spaces in a meandering way so that things look natural. You don't want exact circles around each pot! To be honest, when it comes to inexpensive minor bulbs that can be bought in the hundreds from Van Engelen, I just sheet plant them in fall and plant my perennials right in the middle of them in spring. Any that get dug up by the shovel/trowel just get replanted around the crown of the plant. As for designing on both sides of a walkway, I think this can be pretty flexible. It is nice to use some of the same things on both sides along the pathway for continuity & repetition. But not every plant or bulb can or needs to grow everywhere. You do not have to be rigid in your layout about heights. You of course do not want to plant tall bulbs blocking shorter ones, but the perennials in the bed will be mostly invisible when the bulbs come out in early spring, and most won't be large even at the end of spring bulb season. When it comes to later bulbs, it is a bit more complicated. The big alliums look great towering over perennials. Their foliage is often so bad you need the perennials hiding it even before bloom, but afterwards the foliage disappears quickly often leaving some wonderful drying flower heads. Daffodils (full size ones) need something like daylily or sedge foliage to hide its dying foliage. Either that or plant them out in the distance - or the foliage will drive you nuts! Or use miniatures - wonderful color in a small package. Lilies often get very tall and look nice planted around good sized perennials that hide their long stalks. Their foliage is persistent and you can have different types of lilies growing from early to late in the season. The foliage on my late bloomers lasts till frost. Siting lilies can be tricky and although I love them, I am often not happy about their locations by the end of the season! Also keep in mind that very small delicate flowers, need to be seen up close, but you can play around with perspective a bit by planting little flowers in the distance to make things look bigger - or tempt people down a path. On the other hand if you sheet plant small bulbs, they look great from a distance. I like to make fairly wide ribbons of all blue bulbs (many varieties, blooming over a long time from early to late spring) with smaller spots of white, yellow and pink. You could also pick a different color, or one kind of bulb, and run it through the whole bed, accenting it with other colors or bulbs. Just because I am fundamentally incapable LOL of one color or one variety doesn't mean you have to be - there are lots of options. Tulips being poor rebloomers are another issue altogether. I use 2 methods, small clumps here and there of reasonably good returners, near perennial(s) which will make me forget about them by summer and forgot where I planted them in fall and a dedicated space where I treat them as annuals and plant over with annuals in early summer. That way I always have one really good tulip show in spring and a few surprises here and there. Best wishes, Leslie

Will deer be a problem? If so you need to rethink many of your choices, especially the dogwoods, Rose of Sharon, Rhododendron, Azaleas, and Oakleaf Hydrangea. Many of the others I can't read, so I can't comment on the deer resistance, but the aforementioned are great favorites.

I am trying to create shade in the fragrance garden and ran into this problem. I lost one winter daphne (the other is shaded enough); lost 3 August Beauty gardenias (one is okay); lost 2 of 3 gardenia radicans. So...I created temporary shade by planting colocasia and brugmansia around. Those are underplanted with heuchera (that deer/bunnies eat in winter, but they come back in spring and are left alone). On the outside, I added buddleia that may someday have to be moved once the sweet bay magnolia, the corkscrew willow and the Kousa dogwood are mature. I have 3 nandina Moon Bay on the sunny side of the willow (underneath). It is complicated. Through trial and error (and some expense) I learned how to deal with this on the east side of my house. Cameron

I just put in the Horus Art Cristalli tile in biscuit and I love it. I am awaiting the grout (which I will do in a matching color). I have honey/toffee maple cabinets in a Shaker style door, Crema Astoria granite (a creamy granite with white, black, and garnet areas, and with some subtle but not overpowering gray/silver movement). Even though I love clean lines, I chose this tile over the Tiffany (which is a straight subway) because it has a handmade appearance (the lines are kind of wavy, which go with the movement in the granite). It also has a little sparkle, which my granite does as well. I did not do a border or accent in my backsplash; I used only the HA Cristalli subways. I don't have a big kitchen - it's 10x10, only 15" from cabinet to counter. I chose to leave it plain as I want the focus on the granite and not the tile. I am so happy that I did! When I get a chance I will post some pictures.