Thanks to all of you for your kind words. For Newbie, These beds are all about 5 yrs. old. We had many trees on this lot when we bought the place 31 yrs ago. They were immature at the time. Who knew? We were very young. We had 2 pre-schoolers back then and little time for landscaping. I was lucky to have DH mow the lawn once a week. As the years passed those trees (8 maples, 2 birches, a flowering crab apple, and various and assorted evergreens) grew to canopy almost the entire property. One beautiful maple covered my entire front lawn. You couldn't even see the house from the road. 5 yrs ago we decided to come out of the dark and into the light and had those trees mentioned above removed. We still have many large trees at the bottom rear of the backyard. The fact that tree roots extended from the property line on one side to the property line on the other made it impossible to maintain any decent kind of lawn. Even weeds were unsuccessful. I had tried many different plants, numerous rose bushes, and a sundry of shrubs. Most died. Many survived but did't thrive. The first year following the tree removal the few shrubs and tiny hostas remaining in the landscape grew to what seemed like prehistoric proportions. They simply needed more sun. As a result, everything you see was planted by my tiny little hands. It would seem I was trying to fulfill my lifelong desire for a colorful garden in very short order. It is not difficult nor particularly time consuming to maintain. The daylilies are my favorite plants and I anticipate their blooming every year, but they do require deadheading every day to keep them tidy looking. Not difficult. But early every morning, I grab my pail and have the opportunity to reaquaint myself with each and every plant while performing what might otherwise be a tedious chore. It provides me with the information on what may need attention such as fall division, additional water, a little tender loving pruning. I love it all. This was originally posted so I could provide a little bit of background on the layout of the beds. I will be posting individual plant photos soon. Thanks again, Liz P

Thanks again, especially for the candytuft ID, they are the stars of the spiral right now but they're starting to go to seed. I have a fountain in the front yard, and although I agree it would look great I wouldn't want to deal with the hassle in that particular spot. Birds love fountains, consequently they need to be cleaned frequently and it always involves splashing a lot of water on the ground and walking around the fountain a bit. Maybe I could get a birdbath and hook it to the irrigation system, but a statue would be easier and require less maintenance. I think I'm a one fountain person, a second is not something I relish taking care of but I wouldn't dream of getting rid of the one I have. Most recently a bench has been added to the garden, I realized that the place where the path brushes the raised bed is the coolest and most comfortable spot to hang out so I mentioned it to the DH and next thing I knew we had a new bench. I love it, it's perfect for sitting and enjoying my new area.

Well, at first I thought this was going to have an alcohol theme (Wineberry Candy, Wine Delight, Transylvania Cocktail), but it wasn't:) It sounded good, though! Love Jordan Verhaert and Cherry Valentine. Kentic Blush is also very pretty. Vickie

Thanks for the nice comments all. carolynp, if it would help you, I can include how much of what I planted. Next year, I'm going to keep track of yields a little better. I didn't start tracking until after I came back from my trip. I have a really old scale that seems to weigh accurately enough (I checked it against my digital postal scale, and it was pretty close). I keep the scale in my kitchen window, and keep a calendar in the "bowl" so I can track it as I pick it. sinfonian, you were one of my inspirations for the potato bin. Next year, the potatoes won't be against the retaining wall. I don't know where they'll be yet, but away from the sprinkler for certain. Water does seem to go through the curtain ok, so I don't know how much that would help. I need to get some more fence boards, I want to build another one. My garden is on the south side of my house. It gets great sun over there, and the dogs can't get to it. It does get a little shaded during the summer, but mostly where the raspberries will be. I do hope to garden longer next year by starting some indoors and using plastic over the hoops. We do get a lot of sunshine here (they say 300 days a year), so I should be able to get a jump start in the spring. Because we're at 7000 feet, we do have cold nights, and quite a bit of wind. I'm hoping I do a better planning job, so it will be easier to cover next time. I had to let it go this year because I needed to add more to the beds b/c they were about 8" down. You may be right, I could be the poster child for a cheap garden. All the lumber out there is used and was free. The beds are filled with free manure, leaves, hay, straw, UCG, etc. I have scrounged gobs of leaves this fall. Even the kiddie pool and all that chicken wire keeping the leaves from blowing away, were free. I bought the fence and the posts used, and re-painted. That one was kind of a pain, but I'm not working right now, and I couldn't justify spending $100 for 12 feet of new fence. I did it for about $50 total I think. Even the trash cans out there were from freecycle. The plastic I'll use again come spring I bought from someone on Craigslist for about 1/2 price. A good portion of it was used to wrap items and cover the load of stuff I brought back on my trip this summer, and was still good enough to use again. I did buy the yellow garden cart out there, new. I love that thing, I use it a ton. I'm quite proud of how little I spent building my garden. Come to think of it, I think that's what I started posting in this forum about...