Hi, we live on Long Island NY, zone 7. we have an awesome little area with very little plants. My husband and I are not good at up keeping plants so we wan to make this look nice and make sure it's easy to maintain. We're looking for perennial plants. Mixture of tall & short. Perennial flowers too if they stay in bloom long enough. I'm open to putting in a small tree if it's easy to care for. We have decent sun and inground mister sprinklers in that area. I'd like to post a picture but the site won't let me. I'd reallllly appreciate any help you have to offer. Please help us! We were at the nursery for hours yesterday and were so overwhelmed, we just left.

I have a success story for y'all. I closed on my 1956 house on 12.30.2009. Part of what attracted me to it was almost 1/2 acre lot. It's the standard mostly square older home - nothing at all fancy about the house. But the yard... I've always wanted to become a gardener. I wanted to grow my own food, plants beautiful plants, and have a place of serenity and beauty by way of landscaping. The prior owner was a very old woman who passed away last year. All my neighbors tell me she was all the time working in her yard and had one of those magazine perfect yards all year round. Before she passed away of course. I'm told the yard - front and back, was immaculate. There are several HUGE oak trees in the back yard. There are azaleas, hydrangeas, dogwoods, magnolias, weeping cherry tree, wisteria, hollies, ferns, TONS of hostas, solomon's seals - and so much more! Since I moved in during winter, the back was just sticks and leaves. Years and years worth of leaves. It looked really bad, being neglected for so long. I'm told too that the previous owner had suffered in health her last few years and during that time could no longer take care of her yard. Now, I'm the owner. When I first moved in I must admit - in my extreme ingorance, I was the typical non-gardening type. I looked at the yard and only saw what I wanted to remove so I could plant what I wanted. Terribly selfish I know, and all I could see was my own limited view of beauty. But I believe the gardening Gods were smiling on me. I read a few books prior to me doing anything in the yard, which saved both the yard from disaster and myself from ignorance. After reading these books - my view or gardening was changed forever. I hired a landscaper to identify what he could, and continued to educate myself. Once I realized what I truly had I choose to only clean up this spring and I'm not doing anything else really so I can see what's actually back there. I want to see what grows and blooms throughout the year so I don't accidentally remove something that I should leave. Spring came and my yard came alive! I had no idea how beautiful it would become. And after reading several books on ecological gardening and permaculture, I decided that this yard was mostly fine as it is. To honor the woman who created this masterpiece, I decided that I'd maintain what is back there and the only things I want to do now is replace some of the non-natives plants with native plants, and just keep the yard picked up. I know this will take years as I'm only one person and as you can see, the yard is huge for just one person. I believe this is a very big success story. While the prior owners are no longer here to do the drive by, I believe that my education in gardening and the respect I'm showing for their hard work and beauty is somehow felt by them. At least, that's how I sometimes feel. Or, what I want to believe. http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=100333308934400577480&target=ALBUM&id=5479246416174947185&authkey=Gv1sRgCPHA8eW40a3S9wE&feat=email KJ

What you can do to achieve safety may not be congruent with what the Code requires you to do because someone who wrote the code wasn't thinking of the originating requirement, but of a derived requirement. The functional requirements are (a) avoid back-drafting combustion appliances, and (b), keep the house pressure close enough to the exterior pressure to allow the ventilation hood blower to pull the needed airflow (and also not pull dust and whatever through cracks in the walls). In cold climates, there is an additional requirement to condition the air so one doesn't freeze, although I think requiring that is over-reach by nannies; most people would tailor the length of their high flow rate needed cooking to a short period given the rapid chilling of the household. If you have to go whole-hog, MUA-wise, then there will be a set of cost elements as hvtech42 noted. If active MUA is needed, and it will be if you want to filter the intake air in the presence of combustion appliances, then you might want to check out Fantech, which has a set of such systems for various flow rates. I concur on the utility of investigating the exact wording of the Code requirement. Some locales take notice of whether back-drafting is a risk or not in their Code requirements.

You can post photos in the original post. You just need to wait long enough for the photo to fully load. If you hit 'submit' too quickly, the photo gets left behind. Pros can post in any forum they feel they can contribute to....sometimes it pertains to their profession but other times they are just offering opinions, much like any other poster would. No need to take them any more seriously than any other forum participant. btw, if you "follow" whatever forums you are most interested in, they will show up under 'Your Topics' in alphabetical order (on the lefthand side of your screen) so you can just go down your list to find whatever forum you want to view. Click on it and you are there. It's not really all that hard, people :-)