First let me say I love your house. My dream is to someday own a little bungalow!! I almost bought one once but it needed more work that I was willing to do at the time. I know I am late to the party, and I am no landscape expert, but I'm going to chime in my .02 anyway. One of the biggest problems I think you have, in more ways than one, are those huge everygreen shrubs against the foundation. They will dwarf anything else you are doing and it will all look kind of washed out. It seems to me your vision is for a wonderful little perrenial flower garden in front of your house, and in the meantime you have behemouth shrubs to deal with. I would seriously consider taking them out and plant something more open, airy and smaller. There are excellent selections of small, open evergreens at high quality nurseries now days, many of them bred to grow small because your situation is pretty typical of what modern home owners are looking for. At the very least, I would take out the big shrub next to the steps. I had a similar shrub next to the porch stairs in a house I lived in once, and it was a major pain to maintain. An evergreen such as that will trap moisture (especially melting snow) up by the house and the railing and the stairs, all contributing to their faster decline--rust, corrosion and weathering of concrete. There is nothing ugly about your foundation that you need to particularly hide. Rip out that big shrub, and put in something light and airy and flowery. Or at the very least, extend the smaller shrub border all the way to the steps. But honestly, I'd bite the bullet and tear it all out, then you will have a clean slate to design YOUR garden the way YOU want it, not have to work around those ponderous shrubs that someone long gone planted because they just filled a spot. They have overgrown their welcome, IMHO.

If your soil does contain over 18 percent organic matter then you are close to having created a bog and that soil may well be holding too much water in the soil then your plants can grow in. Very few soil test labs test for Nitrogen because how much might be available is very dependant on soil temperature at the time the sample is taken, ie. how active the Soil Food Web is. That the lab said to add X amount of Nitrogen per 1,000 square feet means that they have found this necesary in soils that do not have enough organic matter and therefore a not active Soil Food Web that will supply the plants with the N they need when they need it. Most every soil test I have had done in the last 45 years says to apply 1 to 3 pounds of Nitrogen per 1,000 square feet and my plants have all done very well without that and I see fewer insect pests because of that. Move your non bog loving plants out and into a more appropriate environment for them, other wise the numbers are all fairly decent, really.

Northerner my favorite flower is a daisy or any type of daisy. Shasta daisy use to be a flower that I really researched out, did you know there is 150 different types of shasta daisy that luther burbank created?? I know that is totally irrelevant but I just had to throw that out there cause most do not realize there is that many different varieties of the plant. Anywho after falling in love with the shasta daisy white knight many years ago and purchasing seed and actually getting germination I was sadly disappointed the second year. Ended up that it was nothing like the white knight I had read about and it looked more like the alaska version. Well after more reading I found a website that actually listed the white knight as an f1 hybrid. Now I do not remember what website I read that on and I do not know if it is true, but it could explain why you had low germination and why I had an alaska look alike. How I actually started my seeds were actually direct sown. I direct sowed them in my unamended clay soil in full sun. I had pretty good germination, I did not do a cold treatment prior. Northener I have currently of the shasta daisy collection, silver princess, alaska, becky, and snow lady. My favorite of the ones I have grown is the becky. She does not flop, she has a long bloom period and she is evergreen here. I plant her anywhere in my yard regardless of shade or full sun and I get great results. The blooms are about 3" in diameter, and they make a great cut flower. I have never had a problem with disease or pest and I am the type of person that hates to drag out a hose so I rarely water so she is also drought resistant. Currently I have a clump that I can dig up that is not budded yet that I would be more than happy to send to you for postage. That is if you are interested. Just email me and we can discuss that further if you want. Oh and after I found that out about the white knight either last year or the year before, I tended to lose interest in the shasta daisy. I just decided I have good faithful becky and I am happy. Now if someone offered me a clump of broadway lights or sunny side up I would probably be on that like gum on the bottom of a shoe, lol. Here is becky! Here is silver princess!

Thankful to hear someone call Bingo! Annie, I will give another person a chance to call Bingo until the end of the day in case they have not been able to get online at this point, but if I don't hear from anyone you are the winner. I had no idea we could be down to just 2 more words to be drawn at this point and so many people still needed those two words - or at least one of them! Wow, this was a long Bingo game. Kelli, I'm so happy to report your package showed up in today's mail! It makes you wonder what they do with Priority Mail though; doesn't it? There's no indication it went somewhere else or had a problem of any kind. It's a wonderful package. I smiled when I saw the Sno-Caps. I wanted to get those to put in your package because they seemed perfect for the swap theme and I went to 3 stores and couldn't find them. Anyway, I love Sno-Caps! Kelli also send a pretty note, a journal which is great for recording garden events, and a pair of red gloves. You know I may try putting on hand cream and wearing them in the evening. My hands get so dry in the winter. Kelli also sent 4 packs of seeds Nicotiana Woodland, Echinacea Pow Wow (white), Rose Mallow (white), and Winter Thyme. What great names and I will enjoy all of them. Thanks so much for everything. I will check later to see if this completes our January swap. With the new horse arriving this month, I feel like I have not been on top of things as much as I like so sorry about that but I'm so glad that you enjoyed the swap. I enjoyed this theme, too. We took my new horse, Piper, to the vet for shots, etc. today and she would not get back on the trailer. I guess she liked it there. (Ha! Ha!) Anyway, I think we were there over 2 hours trying to get her to load back on the trailer. My husband finally had to detach the truck and drive home to get some grain to lure her back on. (Whew, it would have been getting dark in about an hour and the vet's office was trying to close down. Piper has a mind of her own on some things and we are working to get her less "opinionated". As my friend explains a 5 year old horse is kind of like a teenage child. Someone should have sent her to her room or make her stand in a corner to get her to behave long before this! LOL Okay, I rambled long enough. Talk with everyone later - and if I am too worn out from my vet experience, I'll be back tomorrow morning. Jeanne