Hi Lady, I think just about everything here has been talked about. I'll mention one more thing, and that's horse manure. It does wonders for soil. If you can get it on in Fall and rains seep it into the soil along with spring rain and melting snow, that's the ideal time to do it. You may also do it in spring or any time else if you are able to water often. The key is to get it into the soil. In spring though your whole yard will stink to beat hell. I know because my Mom used to do it each and every spring of my entire childhood. And like Barbara and I'm sure others have mentioned "anything organic" you can get on clearance, especially come fall as the stores are trying to get rid of bulk, just keep adding it to your beds. Broken bags are always on my mind while shopping. Pick them up anytime you can find them for 50 cents or whatever you can get them for. Eventually that manure will have done the work for you and you'll be able to use a tiller. ...for the next years ahead keep adding as much organic as you can when you till in the spring and come Fall, till and then spread horse manure over the tilled soil. Once your soil is gem-like...throw more manure on it each Fall and any organics you can scrounge up. As a side note, if you or anyone is preparing a veggie garden with horse manure, you must spread it during Fall and let it work it's way in over the winter and spring. Adding fresh horse manure to a veggie garden in spring can be toxic to humans when eating harvests. Not always, but the potential is always there for toxicity.... Dax

The person who criticized my posts for being too complicated, better just stop now. I guess it helps to remember the zones are 'USDA', which is the US department of agriculture and really has nothing to do with ornamental plants. Nein. Ornamental plants ARE part of the USDA's mission. That's why the National Arboretum is under their aegis. Remember wholesale nurseries definitely are a form of agriculture. The USDA zone system gives the barest measure of whether a plant can survive in a given area. Obviously, something hardy only in zone 10 cannot survive in zone 6. Beyond that, there are many other factors. The latest revised USDA zone map seems very accurate to me. I know of gardens along the Delaware river in NJ that really do seem like zn 7b. But it took a ridiculously long time to come out...considering the overall crunching of data probably took a few hours on a high perf. workstation or server. (in case you don't know, it's based on a climate model developed at U Oregon called "Prism") This was not some advanced climate simulation going on like trying to predict hurricanes. And given that computer technology has advanced so much including the algorithm development one would have to say the current USDA map reflects a certain lack of vision, though, again, at least they finally got it correct. By this I mean something like the Sunset system could have been developed, although there were problems with that approach if you try to extend it over the country. Rather than discrete numbers that could get ridiculously long for certain plants (i.e., this grows in 21, 33,34,35,36,37,38,40,52,61,62,63,64,75,78 etc) it could have used a series of vectors that graph a space representing the plant's preferences. Zones 1 to 10 would still be the first dimension of this system so you don't "break compatibility" with what we already have. The two main additional factors I would propose would be aridity, and summer temperature. There are several reasons for this; namely, there are already 2 factors certain nurseries use when selling plants. The AHS "heat zone" map exists, and is used by a few nurseries to show warning on certain species, and aridity scales have been adopted by Desert Northwest and High Country Gardens. Mind you these scales would not necessarily be linear and could code a sub-dimension, or even be matrixed to code an additional factor. For example it might make more sense for moisture to go: part of year arid - sporadic/none of year - all year - part of year but high atmospheric moisture. Because there are non-linearities in the way plants behave with respect to that, and with summer temperature. Some cool summer seasonal plants are actually known to grow in all year rainfall climates like England, but only with cool summers. The point is the arrange things in the way that leads to the most chances of solid groupings. Such mathematical shenanigans might make it hard for people to understand how to derive their own zone, but the point is it doesn't matter. They will get their zone off a map. Also different from the Sunset zones, there no need for a comprehensive, singular map because everyone will use some kind of smart device in the future that can easily click one location between 3 or more different maps. So a zone like mine would go from 7a (I think the a/b is of more limited usefulness than most people realize, though I have and will continue to reference the subzones) to something like 7J6. 7 being 0 to 10f min annual temp, J being a climate with rain all year but some expectation of brief droughts, and 6 being heat zone 6. Let's call it the Comprehensive Plant Zone. A _PLANT_ ranges, versus a gardening location, would go from "USDA zone 7-10" for a maritime climate plant like Eucryphia, to "CPZ (comprehensive plant zoning) zone "7H2-10M4" meaning that range of minimum winter temps, and a generally moist climate though accepting somewhat dry summers, as long as 3) the summers are cool. I would instantly recognize that I can't grow the plant because I'm off on one of the codes. Of course, this will never happen and there will be howls of "it's too complicated" but you can be sure in the early 1960s some hayseeds saw the first Harvard zone map and said "oh them fancy professors and their durn maps, I know what grows here and uh don't need some map." Also let's face that other than the big midwestern cities the net migration in the country is towards the SE, S & W where the USDA zone system is least useful. USDA system is most useful for telling people in Iowa there are many, many plants that they are far too cold to grow (sorry Iowans, someone had to be an example) than answering the question for someone in Phoenix, Arizona of whether a certain species of Protea could grow there. (and I reckon a couple of the most heat tolerant ones could) That a sunset zone map was made for the whole country is something I applaud, my idea just tries to make their system easier to use when dealing with a lot of customers and plants. Instead of saying "that only grows in 31, not 42" it's more helpful to say "your moisture factor of J is too much for an A-E plant, it will rot".

Have been there about 5 x myself. Its about a 3hr to 3.5hr ride for me from southern NH. Its one Americas greatest gardens/landscapes. For myself, I have only seen 1 better and that was at the (rock garden) NY Botanical Garden at the ACS national meeting this past August. Just had a moment...I'm taking what I said back....Its the greatest landscape I have ever seen. The bog garden which is on his website is mind blowing. The difference is he does not have a 90 million annual budget like NYBG. I recommended Cady Falls to everyone. Great web site. Extremely informative catalog. The owner is a very nice guy. He also carries a lot of conifers from Greg Williams. One of Americas great plantsmen who happens to be located a few miles from Cady Falls. Anyways those are my thoughts.

Mike, and others, I appreciate your positive perspectives. While books, magazines and 'experts' create gardening 'laws', these are really meant for the uninitiated, those lacking ambition or those who don't want to wander too far off the proven track for gardening success. While I can appreciate the typical garden, I didn't want that for my own setting. People seem to want to be unique but a lot of them still seem to end up buying a red sports car, a blue minivan for the family and a golden retriever. Doing something different or unique is inherantly challenging and there is plenty of risk. There's certainly no guarentee that my gardens will turn out exactly as I planned them but per the cliche, usually life is about the journey, not the destination. As my gardens evolve, it will be interesting to see what worked great, what didn't work at all and what new things I try as opportunities present themselves. Hopefully however I mold it, my gardens please ME first and my neighbors/visitors second. I wouldn't want to live with a garden everyone else considered great if I myself didn't enjoy it. Mike I do want to say that your garden photos have had serious impact on my views and plans longterm. To me, it's a near perfect, lifelong project of intermixing a wonderful mature setting with collector and rare selections. I can't imagine designing something as majestic - but I can try! Here's a few more photos, I'm hopeful people enjoy them(but this isn't required! :) Pots, extending the garden onto the deck. My simply, but effective paths. Seperating shade from sun gardens. This grass is endangered! It takes too much water/pesticide/fertilizer/work, and it surely is holding back my collecting habit! -Will