I, too, have two huge fir trees in my small front yard in N. Seattle and they were huge in June 1972 when we bought the house. At one time there was a nice little lawn under the trees that my ex-husband was tending, but I have never been much of a gardener so now it's all dandilions and bare dirt. I have a German Shepherd and would like to have a little patch of grass for her, with the rest of the yard being covered with woodchips. She spends most of her time in the house, so the yard is not her main focus. I am tired of it looking so ratty and have planted some bulbs in pots, and they are coming up. I also have two big rhodys that continue to do well. I have thought of buying a little patch of sod and rolling it out for an instant lawn, but first the prepwork must be done. After reading all these exchanges about fir trees and vegetation, I suspect I should be thankful that there are dandilions growing well under my trees! I will never cut them down! Maybe putting some steppables out there in the middle would be almost as good as a little patch of lawn. Any thoughts are welcome.

I was reading all the posts on this particular thread, because I wanted to go ahead and plant butterfly bushes that I'm going to grow from seed. I have 'Nanho Blue', but it doesn't attract them at all. Sometimes, I think it depends on the butterflies that frequent your part of the country, and not what someone in Canada may use that is a very good attractor. I am on the Butterfly forum constantly, and I raise Monarchs, Black Swallowtails, Giant Swallowtails, Red Admirals, Gulf Fritillaries, among other butterflies. I wanted something to attract the Swallowtails, though. I get plenty of eggs and caterpillars, but never see the BSTs nectaring. Several people on the Butterfly forum suggested buddleia, and the pink and white cultivars are the ones that most attract swallowtails. I asked about vitex (chaste tree), and most people said they do not attract the masses of butterflies that buddleia does. I had a B. davidii at one time, and it died after two years. I grew it in partial shade; never had any seedlings, but had plenty of blooms even in part shade. I wonder if the growing conditions prevented self-sowing? I don't know. But, I think I might just put mine in the partial shade to see if that will work. Glossy abelia was also suggested as a plant that attracts numerous butterflies, and the great thing is that it blooms all summer and into fall. I think I'll try that, too. There is a cultivar that apparently doesn't sucker very much. Placement is also part of the issue with butterfly bushes - I mean, placing them in a location where reseeding occurs at a minimum, like a strip garden located between a sidewalk and driveway. Anything in the lawn gets mowed anyway. I found my common zinnias and cosmos to be great nectar plants, as well as tropical milkweed. Now, before anyone gets upset because I planted tropical milkweed. It's not hardy in my zone for one thing. Also, it's the favorite host plant of the Monarchs over any other milkweed, because it is higher in cardiac glycosides, which is what the Monarchs NEED for protection from predators. The most palatable Monarchs are those that eat milkweed with lower levels of CGs, like cynanchum, for instance (milkweed vine). Other substitutes for butterfly bush are native perennial plants like verbesina encelioides (Golden Crownbeard), verbena hastata, eupatorium maculata (as mentioned above), but Gregg's mistflower (native mistflower) is a great one, too. Early season nectar plants are spring beauty, larkspurs, linums, and phlox divaricata. Ceananthus americanus is another native shrub good for nectaring and the clethra mentioned is good, too. Bidens, monarda fistula, native echinaceas, rudbeckias, dogbane, blazing stars (liatris), and solidago are also fantastic nectaring plants. Non-natives like lantana, pentas, oregano, mints, agastaches, and globe amaranths are good, too. Wish me luck with my Buddleia plantings - I hope they don't prove to be too...

Ah, the SFA gardens!! Divine!! Don't know which I like best - spring or fall. Fall is alight in golds, reds, yellows of the Japanese maples, just beautiful beyond belief. Then spring - the pinks, whites, reds of the azaleas, and the yellows, oranges of the native azaleas. Just a paradise, am so lucky to live nearby. Am going to a meeting at SFA Thurs. nite where they will discuss what will be selling at the upcoming spring SFA sale - which I NEVER miss. I had to go one year with a broken patella, in a wheelchair, but I got preferential treatment and came home with a bunch of stuff! They have new walking trails which I need to check out. Creech and Greg Grant are great guys. One of my best friends volunteers at the greenhouses on Mondays - I got him a bunch of rose cuttings yesterday to put under the mist system - should be interesting to see how that works out. You should try to make the spring sale, I think its April 11. It is really hilarious - its like the Oklahoma Land Rush! People have all sorts of contraptions to haul their plants in. I bring my golf cart and little wagon - last fall, my friend and I tied both wagons in line to the golf cart to get all our loot back to the truck! They have lots of great things there - don't see many hostas......will talk to Greg about that. He loves roses, so am excited about giving him cuttings of some of my rare ones. If you plan to go - be there right at 9am - stuff goes fast! We usually go the day before and scope things out and mark what we want, and where we need to go first. Re slugs - I don't have enough hostas YET to be worried about them, but I know that sprinkling even a little bit of salt on them melts them. I haven't tried this, but would think that putting rock salt around pots would do them in. I read that slug bait is poisonous to dogs, so cant use it. I know when I sprinkle salt near my outdoor dog food I don't see slugs. They like chicken feed too.....I sprinkle it around the aluminum trash cans that my chicken feed is in and it zaps them. And how right you are about getting mugged by mosquitoes! I keep the OFF handy in spring/summer at all times! Am usually so worn out with taking care of horses and chickens and doing my gardening that picking off slugs at night isn't going to happen. I have a lot to learn about hostas - so far with the ones I have, they are doing well. My Empress Wu is due to ship from Naylor Creek on Monday - I have a little list I want to add to it! Really looking forward to adding to my small collection - and the forum members are so very nice and so willing to help new growers! Judith

Some general trends I think you could go in... allow trees at foreground and at house corner to become larger while removing bottom foliage (limbing the trees up) so as to maintain views beyond and keep the yard from being overwhelmed by low hanging foliage. This necessitates an organized trunk structure since that is a main feature of the tree. (The crape myrtle trunk system seems too wide spreading/haphazard, IMO.) Define the foreground bed (picture below) to be round with a uniform, low growing plant below. Trim hedges below windows LEVEL. Trim the large shrub at the house smaller and maintain that size .... or remove and replace with naturally smaller plant. Remove the Hydrangeas. Great plant but wrong place. There are other places you could tweak and add, but need an overall landscape plan to determine those.