I would start with some practical questions, which can be useful with the short-term plans, and can help you set the 'bones' for your longer-term plans. And can help you keep things simple. Might help with the 'stuck' thing. Where on that porch do you want shade, either from shrubs/small trees or trellises with climbers? Sun in the morning and shade in the evening? And do you want a blocking of vision from the road to feel that the porch is more private? Or would you rather have that view more open? Which way does the prevailing wind come from? Depending on where you are, you may want to leave that breeze corridor open, or you may want some buffering. If I had that porch, I would want to just plain live on it [jealous grins]. But is there another area to the back or side of the house where you might want other outdoor-living spaces.... Barbecue/picnic areas, play areas, a patio, whatever? Or is that front porch likely to be the focus of your outdoor-time? Once you've thought about all this stuff, you will have an idea about where to place some of the 'bones'. Shrubs, small trees, trellises, any walls, fences, whatever. Then, *around* those bones, you can keep developing plans for later, and can plant the things you want. And there is no reason that you can't just pick a garden spot or three for some of the sun plants you want to try, preferably in close view from your chair on the porch. But you can keep the plants, and the labor and maintenance, very small. Forget worrying about foundation plantings around the house. Concentrate on the areas that will affect your enjoyment of the property in the way *you* want to enjoy it. [What do *you* want to see when you walk out on the porch with coffee in the morning?] And with the setting of your house in its landscape, you would do better with more irregular planting areas where they work well and for you, rather than nice, neat standard all-around-the-house-suburban foundation beds. Plant where and what you want, and you can add more irregular space to the bed, and more plants, later. Use a weed-whacker along the rest of the foundation....

My daughter (6) had a tea party last year for her friends. It was "formal" so they all dressed up like princesses with their dress-up clothes and jewelry. After having "tea" (fruit juice in a tea pot) and cookies, I gave them each a vase and a scissors and we cut flowers to make a bouquet to take home to their moms. It was a LOT of fun. We decorated the kids playhouse and had the tea party there, which is in the garden. From Garden Girls Tea Party Would you like to come in for some tea? From Garden Girls Tea Party From Garden Girls Tea Party Picking flowers for Mom.

Jay, as much as I like those two infills, I'm thinking those designs are conflicting with and distracting the eye from the pattern of the windows. My suggestion is to use the RISING SUN design for a fence gate. I have a really fine book BY Suzanne Slesin called CARIBBEAN STYLE, and one of the houses/cases does have the rising sun pattern around the porch railing. The bottom on, with the XXXX is reminiscent of the British colonial style in the West Indies. I love a good porch rail though. So, I've taken photos of numerous railings and transom designs, and will zip the file up and send it to you. I'll meanwhile just put ONE photo up here. As soon as I get them off my camera. The book I mentioned is now out of print, but it might be available through some library. The shots are of actual railings, not just designs from a textbook. What I'm thinking would be good, is to have a GATE with your palm or sunrise, and then the same sort of design for your transoms, maybe the upper portion of your front door glass.

Lovely, Sheila... I'm glad you stuck with it too. :-) Such graceful foliage and habit - as Ingrid says, an example of why so many of us prefer the older roses to their modern successors. The petals seem so delicate and fine it looks almost as if they're made of gauze, and I particularly like the characterful way (some of) the buds seem to be paler/white-ish than the opened flower, then still stay soft white-ish as they get big, fat and globular, before opening fully to show the deeper colour within, still surrounded by a pale aura of translucent outer petals. I wonder whether that tendency to droop (I just saw an old post with pics from Catspat about it) might be at least somewhat dependent on soil nutrients? I can never remember if it's potassium or phosphorus, and/or something else, that is supposed to make 'weak necks' stronger, but maybe you have a bit more of it/them in your soil there?