Welcome to the group Jenny. Where are you in Australia? I am in Michigan - lived in Armidale NSW for a year. Did you know there is also an Australian Garden Web? I just checked and it is at http://www.au.gardenweb.com/forums/ - lots of sites there. I hope you enjoy your time here and post often to tell us about your gardening experiences. Cheers from Michigan

Actually, that was the side I didn't do anything to other than cut a few of the larger berry bushes at the bottom of the hill. That birch is in rough shape and without staking it up and waiting several years, it won't survive. I would just assume take it down since it's not really in a great location anyway. I hate to do it since they are becoming relatively scarce due to disease and insects. This picture http://minus.com/lbx4OfKnwRF4xc shows what are definitely blackberry/raspberry bushes. I wouldn't mind having them, in fact I would welcome having a ton more, just not here. Being on the slope they will not be easy to get to when the mature and have fruit. If there was a way to transplant them or something I would love to hear it. I had tried it in the past, but the only way I have ever seen them grow was by accident and negligence. Based on the size of a few of the lower bushes, I would bet they may produce a limited amount of fruit. The smaller ones at the top of the hill however are definitely not mature enough from my experience. Going off on a tangent... I loved having berry bushes growing up and we had a large sandy area on my parent's property that they grew like crazy in. They eventually began to die off and my dad chopped them all down. The began to come back by the time I went to college, but it took a while to get any amount of fruit from them. My last year at college I rented a small cottage on a back road that had the biggest patch of black raspberries I had ever seen. I started picking as soon as they began to ripen and then ever couple days for the next 3 weeks. I stopped for lack of room in the freezer for 1gal ziplock bags. I made at least a dozen pint jars of jam and a few quarts. I gave a bunch away but i'm hoarding the last few of the "good" batch for myself. :) So in other words, I would love to have berry bushes, just not where they are. A lot of what you see on the ground on the left side (looking from the house) is debris and not much in the way of live plants other than some weeds. Obviously it is still very early here and not much has come up yet though. The tree shown in the background of this picture http://minus.com/lbwhVJrx76OE9d appears to be planted from what is left of the mulch/preparation around the base. This shot http://minus.com/lvFny84VUSjeW shows a rock swail that comes down from what is left of the last owners fish pond sort of thing. There is a reddish low lying plant growing on either side that I failed to get a close up picture of. It appears that it will look nice later in the spring but needs some weeding and/or mulching. I will take your advice and try posting some pictures on the "name that plant" forum. In the meantime, would I benefit from getting some sort of tall meadow grass mix to put down in a few weeks? *whoops, I wrote a book

Hi Kai, Welcome to the forum. I'm so glad to have you join us and hope you'll have a wonderful time gardening at your new place. I don't know what county you're in, but I'd definitely do the soil test first. I'd also try to figure out how fast the land drains (you could use a post hole digger to dig a couple of holes in your garden bed area, fill them with water and see how many hours or days it takes them to drain) and I'd do the jar test (linked below) to figure out the composition of the soil. Once you know if your soil is more clay, or sand, or silt, you'll know what you need to do to improve it. If it were me, the top priority would be to remove the bermuda grass as much as possible AND break up the compacted soil and do what I could to improve its' texture/friability. When we built our garden after moving here in 1999, we rototilled up the grass, and I spent WEEKS on my hands and knees filling a 5-gallon bucket with every bit of bermuda grass plant, stolon, root, runner, etc. that I could find. I also removed all the other roots I could find, especially the nutgrass roots/nutlets and the bulbs of wild onions. Then, after I thought I had "all" of it, we'd rototill again and I'd start all over from scratch. After 3 or 4 rounds of that, I really did have most of the roots out of the ground. Of course, turning over the soil exposes billions of weed seeds to the sun and they all are going to sprout, but that is true of any new land you break for a garden plot. Even after doing that, of course, I still had to fight the grass and weeds continually, but had much less to remove every year than I had the year before. I'd urge you to be as organic as possible because it works and it helps the earth instead of harming it. I am not 100% organic, and I don't hesitate to use Round-up or other glyphosates to try to keep the bermuda grass under control, but I do try to be as organic as possible. Study the climatology of your county and be sure you understand the average freeze dates and averages as well as your monthly rainfall. It can be very hard to get the cool season crops in at the right time if the weather is not cooperating, and with the speed at which our weather goes from "too cold" to "too hot", proper timing is even more important here than it is in areas that have longer, milder springs before summer's heat arrives. It IS almost planting time, and I am so glad. I hope you have time to get your soil ready before potato and onion planting time gets here. You will see that we discuss spring planting, bermuda grass removal and soil improvement/bed building (among many other topics) non-stop here in the spring. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Fine Gardening Article Featuring Jar Soil Test

Randy, I am sorry for your recent loss. When my dad passed away five years ago, I found myself in a similar situation. My only sibling passed away eleven years earlier and I never had the chance to grieve, but instead I had to take care of my mom. Can you or your siblings care for your dad for a little while? I am only suggesting this because the situation is still so fresh and raw. It may help to have a little time pass before you guys make such a big decision. You really want to find the right kind of care and that may take some time. After four years (and I am not suggesting you take your father that long by any means) of caring for my mom, I needed help. A social worker suggested for me to try a "BOARD AND CARE FACILITY". I live in California, so I'm not sure about Pennsylvania, but these facilities are located in a single family dwelling, in regular neighborhoods. If you go to the Care Giver forum on Gardenweb, I posted a thread a couple of months ago that gave an address for a publication that lists different levels of care for senior facilities. Again, sorry for you loss.