There's a lawn care forum here at GW. You might want to pose your lawn questions there. I assume you mean some kind of garden or shrub bed along the driveway, not mulch per se. Construction of a bed itself isn't all that big a deal (remove sod, test soil, amend with organic matter, plant then mulch to conserve water and reduce weeds), but to select plants you'll need to consider the soil type and sun exposure. In NH, presumably you'll also need to consider snow removal and possibly salt tolerance along a driveway which might make some shrubs not particularly good choices. Perhaps a no-mow groundcover other than grass would be a better choice than a mixed perennial or shrub border. Again, think about the practicalities and decide what might work better for you.

Cover the area with newspaper and cover the newspaper with a mulch to hold the newspaper in place and hide it. The newspaper keeps any plants growing under it from getting the sunlight plants need to grow so they will die and the soil bacteria will digest them putting the nutrients in the grass and "weeds" back into the soil to feed any plnats that grow there in the future. Keep in mind that the more sheets of paper layed down the harder it will be for the soil bacteria to digest so the longer that will take. Most of the time I have found that 4 to 6 sheets of paper are plenty. Soak the soil well before laying the paper down and the soil moisture will wet those papers, after the mulch is plunked down, so there is no need to try and handle wet paper which in my experience tends to fall apart too easily. If you wnat to sheet compost over that bed, Lasagna Gardening is one name for doing that, that is always a good way to get more organic matter into the soil. Here is a link that might be useful: Lasagna Gardening 101

In my yellow and blue border, the very best sources of all-summer yellow color are from shrubs: Spirea Thunbergii "Ogon" (really needs a bit of afternoon sun in our heat), Duranta "Cuban Gold", and Berberis thunbergii "Aurea" (thorny, but low, gorgeous and unstoppable in our hot sun). These yellow leaved shrubs are some of the bones of the border. I also use Tanacetum Isla Gold (again, golden foliage), especially near the front edge. In early summer I use lots of yellow daylilies. I am very particular about the shades I choose. Cool yellows and warm yellows sometimes clash to my eye. Rudbeckia "Herbstonne" (lovely foliage is a bonus), Helianthus "Lowdown" (tall but never flops), and "Carefree Sunshine" Rose add later blooms than the daylilies. I also have alot of Zephyranthes candida along the front edge, which is a white rainlily that has a prominent yellow eye. I added zephyranthes reginae to the border this year, and the few blooms I got were a lovely cool yellow. It's very hard to beat rainlilies from July to late fall around here. In addition, I use a few yellow blooming annuals in that border: Yellowbird Cosmos and yellow marigolds (again, watch the shade). In combination with several blue salvias, stokesias, Rozanne geranium, etc. it is a very satisfying bed.

Hi Zach, I don’t know what you’ll think of this, but the first thing that came to mind when you asked for something to replace the Zauschneria is the perennial four O’clock, Mirabilis multiflora! Low and spreading, very similar to the way Callirhoe is “viney” and covers a large area without actually rooting in as it spreads. What’s the grass you have in that little rocked in area? If it’s a real short one the Mirabilis could possibly run it right over! If it’s taller, no problem I think! Here’s a thread I started a looong time ago asking for info and advice about it when I got one and found contradictory info! I still don’t have one (that lived!), but it’s still on my Must Have One Day list! As you can see on this thread, some people say it can spread up to 6’ or more! Because of the nature of the plant, I believe you could just trim the individual stems to shorten them if it started going Too Far! http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/2129011/information-on-perennial-four-oclock-mirabilis-multiflora?n=21 Some places say it can be invasive, but I haven’t found any Colorado folks saying that! And I think it’s pretty enough to want to try it anyway! (Kind of like I did with the Z-Word!!!) I do believe it reseeds some—but I don’t believe it’s enough to be a nuisance! At the bottom of that thread Jali posted a couple pics of hers while they were still pretty small. Jali, if you see this, how are yours doing??? [Or did you move out of that house???] If Kiddo likes ‘Dragon’s Blood’, how about some other sedums for him? I can bring starts at the next swap—cuttings he can start for himself, for a real sense of accomplishment! Let me know which ones you already have! AND! How about some semps??? There is SO much variety in the size, shape, and color of these things that I am constantly amazed when I see new ones! I have a small yard so I just keep a “small patch” of all the different ones—I must have at least a couple dozen different ones by now! Can also bring “chicks” for some different varieties that he can start himself! [Instruction sheets for rooting sedums and starting hen & chicks included when I bring unrooted ones!] And then there’s the iceplants! Not sure if you have any of those yet or not! Some of the older varieties can get pretty straggly looking, and have a way of suddenly dying off big time, but the newer ones, Delosperma basuticum ‘White Nugget’ and ‘Gold Nugget’ spread slowly, stay nice and compact, and grow very densely. I give ‘White Nugget’ away at swaps—and will be giving ‘Gold Nugget’ (under a different name!) away probably by next year. Here are links to some olde threads where I posted real live pics of these things! Hen & chicks on this one! These are just a few of the first varieties I started at this house! http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/2135209/hen-and-chicks-addiction?n=14 A “groundcover” thread, so more than just sedums, but a lot of sedum pics too—with ‘White Nugget’ right up on top! Don’t miss the sedum pics down near the bottom of the thread! Show them to Kiddo and see what he thinks of them! (When I was a kid and found out there were ALL kinds of sedums, I got REALLY interested in them!) http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/2129058/need-help-selecting-a-groundcover-plant?n=16 And a few more sedum and iceplant pics—some of these could be the same as on the first thread! I love the way the sedums and the hen & chicks “change color” in winter and spring! Also, since the semps and iceplants, and almost all of the sedums are evergreen, it keeps “something” out there to look at over winter when most of the perennials “go away!” Even with my one deciduous sedum, if I get it cut back early enough it starts to grow the “rosettes” for the next year, and they’re out there all winter too! http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/2130716/groundcover-advice?n=10 It seems to me that little patches of different sedums/semps/iceplants would look really good here and there in your garden—and Kiddo could have his very own things to take care of! [I LOVE to get kids interested in gardening!] I don’t know if this makes any difference to you, but I don’t like to “walk all over the soil” in my perennial beds, so as soon as I started putting things in I “installed” some small pieces of flagstone for “stepping stones.” I can reach almost everything from one of the stepping stones, and that way I’m “standing in the same place” whenever I’m working out there, and not trampling the soil down all over the place. And since I have “rocks” here, there, and everywhere (many of which—the smaller ones!—I’ve collected when I was out trippin’!), the flagstone blends right in with the “overall look” of it! Your bed is large enough that you could kind of put a couple little “paths” through it—with the stepping stones spaced fairly far apart! If you go down to the “whole garden” pic near the bottom of the second linked semp/sedum thread, between the “bonsai’d honeysuckle bush” and the hydrangea, you can see the little pieces of flagstone here and there in that bed! (No “small” rocks in that pic! It was taken in ’08, the year I started Trippin’ In Earnest! There are LOTS of “rocks” out there now, and in the last couple years I’ve started working on collecting Rocky Mountain Driftwood!) I’m not sure about this, but I don’t think the squirrels will do much damage to the Helianthus! The stems, unlike annual sunflowers, are very thin, and I don’t think they could climb up enough to get to the flowers! But if they do try, they just might “drag” the whole top of the plant down! DUH! Just thought of this! NO squirrel problems! H. m. seed is small—closer to Echinacea seed! Completely different from the annual sunflowers! Do you have a blue fescue? The center of mine—‘Elijah’s Blue’, the “best” one IMO—has completely died out and I’m gonna need to dig, divide, and replant it, and will very possibly have some starts at one of the next couple swaps! Just don’t know when I’ll get it done! Aren’t there “codes” in whatever city you live in that allow you to get The House taken care of so it’s not a Public Nuisance? When you said it was empty I assumed it had been foreclosed—like the Weed Lot Public Nuisance right behind me—which is lived in again—but is STILL a WEED LOT Public Nuisance. I haven’t called Code Enforcement again since the “new folks” moved in, but my whole lot is an insane maze, now, of every kind of milkweed you can imagine—and a bunch more I never even knew existed! If they let it get over the limit (I think it was 8” high) next spring again, I AM gonna call Code Enforcement back—even with them living there now! Broken windows, wildlife living in the building, plants growing into the building!!! That all sounds like stuff that would be prohibited by city codes—almost anywhere! You should go to your city’s site and check it out. I found the info I needed pretty easily on the Thornton site! Gotta go, Skybird P.S. I’ve talked to Barb about the possibility of going to Rocky Mountain Arsenal for a bird watching expedition with you some day (idea originally from the bird thread!) and maybe if we do that we’ll just invite ourselves down to your house for a weenie roast and garden tour after the bird watching!