Welcome Kim ~ You've come to a wonderful forum, filled with lots of great people. It's a place for sharing, learning, having fun. I'm in s.e.FL and it's just starting to rain here, we need it, so I hope we get a good soaking. Right now it is 79, but it is supposed to drop down into the low 50's tonight. Yippee! I don't have a typical cottage garden since a lot of the normal flowers for this type of garden will not grow here. It's the style and attitude of the garden that I have, with tropicals thrown into the mix. Looking forward to hearing about your new home and gardens. Have fun. FlowerLady

Hi Daphnelady, I think you have chosen a good variety of plants and love the idea of mixing flowers,veggies and herbs in the same area...a true cottage garden! The only advise I would say would be to try to make sure that you aren't hiding shorter plants behind taller one such as the hollyhocks. Tall, med, short/border plants..also if you can repeat a color or flower here and there as you go down the the border, by repeating a few of the colors it will help guide your eye down the border and bring unity to the bed especially such a long bed. Another tip that can be a little tricky is to arrange your plants so that you have something continualy blooming along the border so you don't end up with gaps. Look out for the lemon balm! Here where I live it really can take over...it is in the mint family I believe. I tried killing mine that I had in a large pot, the thing wouldn't die, had to pull it out and throw it away to finally rid myself of it. Yes, do take before and after pics...I wish I took more myself. Then you can post them here for all to see and be inspired! Good luck! ~Meghan Here is a link that might be useful: hennypennyrosecottage.blogspot.com

I don't know what quack grass is, so with that in mind .... In one bed that is up against a fence and on the other side wilderness with invasive virginia creeper, I buried plastic flashing. I used a fiskar's edger shovel, worked great. But then I'm digging in sand. A year later, and past the "OMG it is taking over the yard time", the flashing is doing the job. In the front, I contend mostly with St Augustine that spreads along the top of the ground. What I have been doing is a multi-step kind of time consuming thing; but hey - beats fighting weeds. First, I mound up dirt where my border will be. I use either rocks or logs for borders. Then I try to settle the dirt. Second, I layer newspaper over my mound. Third, I lay plastic over the newspaper. Fourth, I put my border material on top the plastic. And lastly, I come back around the front side of the border with a 6" or so strip of newspaper then plastic then cardboard topped with mulch up to the border. You can see in the photo above a garden that is partially complete. On the right is finished on the left I'm still working on the 6" strip. For grass/weeds that spread by underground runners you can dig out a 6" wide and 6" deep moat before you layer on the mulch. Hope this gives you some ideas and help, ~dianne

Mia, You have my sympathy because skeeters eat me alive whenever the moisture levels are high. We had them in abundance here in May when it rained quite a bit, but none since then. Apparently the 4/100s of an inch of rain that fell yesterday won't attract any mosquitoes right now either. We're surrounded with 'native' acreage, including river bottom land full of little creeks, ponds, gullies, etc, that contribute to high mosquito populations when moisture is abundant, so to some extent we always have mosquitoes, though of course they are much worse after heavy rainfall. I avoid the use of pyrethrums, pyrethrins and all derivatives of them because of their toxicity to pets, to bees and also to people. I feel like we're exposed to enough chemicals as it is without deliberately poisoning our air, ground, water, etc. around our house with more, so I avoid all chemicals as much as possible. One reason I try to grow so much of our own food is so I know we're eating good food that isn't heavily doused in chemicals. I think Howard Garrett, a horticulturalist and Organic Gardening author and radio show host from Texas can explain it much more eloquently than I can, so I've linked one of his writings on the use of these chemicals for mosquito control. I just spray my clothing, but not my skin, with mosquito repellents if the things are eating me alive. I don't like using those repellents but consider them a necessary eveil. Really, though, our long term strategy is to create an ecosystem that is welcoming to mosquito predators like dragonflies. We have dragonflies around all the time and I really think they help keep the numbers of mosquitoes down. Most of the time it is so dry here that mosquitoes are only a problem for brief periods of time following heavy rainfall. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: The Dangers of Pyrethrum