Hi. I love how you've planted your beds. In the last photo above, I see that you've apparently cut out the cement to run the gas or power line to the lamp post. That is what I am pondering for the water line we have yet to install, getting our irrigation meter to run from streetside to the other side of our circular driveway. Do you plan to leave it grassed in, with soil only, or will you eventually repair the cut? I can create a new thread to discuss this topic if you like.

We could have made a mortgage payment with the water bill this year......I think by the time it's over and done, it will cost us more than $1500 for water for the 3 1/2 months of drought and extreme heat we have had. And we still lost plants. Japanese maples, evergreens, a dogwood, and we won't know how many perennials and shrubs until spring. I wish my water bill was as low as yours, Babka! I would be dancing in the misty/drizzle! Reality is quite different here! You garden quite differently in CA than we do here in the midwest, as I remember from my many visits out there and all the plants I couldn't even begin to identify; and the rains came in the late winter in northern CA.. Looks like La Nina is back again, officially, so we might have a continued drought (we are still under extreme drought conditions, according to NOAA) and will be that way for a long while. Next summer looks to be like a repeat of this past summer. So thankful for the rain we have gotten the last two days, but it wasn't nearly enough. Hoping for more. And it just started raining again! But I've moved a couple of pots and things, and even after 4 1/2 inches of rain, the ground was still dry as powder under them.

As to the garbage can idea---if you have it exposed to the sun at all, it's going to heat up. (Think how a car sitting the sun will heat up in the winter.) You don't want that. I'm familiar with zone 6 weather, having lived & gardened there for many years, so I have some idea of what you're dealing with...that is, you need to keep the soil cold when you get those weather warm-ups in mid-winter. i.e., the idea behind the insulation is to keep the heat out and the cold in the pots, to moderate the inevitable wide swings in temperature. (Think 'ice chest'.) If the pots are not in the sun, then the insulation board on top of the pots is prolly going to be sufficient. If the pots get any am't of sun OR are close to a bldg., then you need to think about keep the whole shebang cold. Naturally, you would place the insulation barrier around the pots after it's turned cold, really cold. About the wood tops idea...an inch of wood has an R-value of less than 1.5...compared to R-5 for an inch of XPS (the pink stuff) and R-8 for ISO (the foil faced yellow stuff). So, although wood is an insulator, there are better choices. Of course, you could glue XPS to the wood if you want to. Oh yeh, the pink stuff, XPS, will hold up to the elements much better than the foil faced ISO--it's yellow underneath the foil and is much more brittle than XPS. Also, the R-value of ISO degrades to where it's only marginally better than XPS.

I always thought Dachshunds (Doxies) were in perpetual mourning, as they have such sad eyes. Yours is a bit heavy for the breed and appears to have been well fed. Wonder why the previous owner(s) didn't drop it off at the Humane Society? Do they charge for that, in your area? Might keep a close eye on your plants, as the urine contains ammonia. I once had a barren area in one of the flower beds, that a neighbor's cur used for his personal potty. Requests and warnings went unheeded for years and only a $360 fine and a stern admonishment from a Judge (triple fine the next time, confiscation on the 3rd appearance), allowed me to reclaim the flower bed! They can be ferocious protectors of their masters, so treat it well! Rb