Our yard is divided into garden "rooms" and each has something of a focal point, not always intentional. The front entry "room" has a neat chair, the patio "room" has the pond, the gully "room" has a pergola, the back has the arches. When you have beautiful surrounding scenery, creating paths that lead to special vistas with sitting areas to enjoy the vista or view is a useful strategy. mary_lu nice garden! peachymomo you are working at it, it looks good. In time it will be as you envision it. Good things don't happen all at once. :)

I think that a cottage garden can be almost anything you want it to be, that's part of the point. Loads of different flowers, plants, setups, and structures can make up a cottage garden. Or it could have none. Veggies. Roses. Herbs. Perennials. Annuals. Pool of water. Arbor. Garden rooms. Benches. Statues. Just about anything goes. It is the least definable of gardens, and the most personal (i think). As far as I can tell, the only real "requirement" for a cottage garden is a lush landscape. Cottage gardens are full, almost overflowing, with plants, flowers and colour. They are not bare, they are not well-spaced, there are not too many bare mulched areas between plants :) They are crowded and somewhat (if not completely) undisciplined. That's the fun of it all!

Thanks for all the ideas. I grow lots of basil and have all the big perennial herbs (thyme, marjoram, oregano, sage), but I should be able to squeeze in a few more annuals. Most of my vegetable gardening in the past has been the "one eye open" kind, buy the flats and plug 'em in. I never had much luck with carrots with that style, but they are due for another try now, with a little more planning. The asian greens idea I will have to check out, my wife is asian and I would have a ready target for the produce. The local market also doesn't sell too much of that. She goes to the big asian supermarket every once in awhile, but its over half an hour from where we are. Breezyb, I would be interested in the top couple asian greens that you grow as far as ease of growing in our climate and taste. Now I need to figure out where I can put everything! I started putting up a melon trellis over the weekend, but after getting the poles in the ground I got concerned about it shading out the grape trellis that is only 4' away. I may try trellising the melons to only 4' high and since the grapes are 6' high they will not get blocked so much. Scott

You can use either the rope or the spray paint to substitute for the hose. I favor the rope as it allows you to easily fine tune the shape of the bedline without a lot of confusing paint markings :-)) One seldom gets it right the first time!! Just make sure that any curves you plan are graceful and gradual in shape - not too many and with no squiggles.....if that makes sense ;-))