Mike, I love it! It looks frosty! So is it a seasonal bloomer? I want something for the house that smells good and blooms year round! :-) I buy the air freshener sprays, and always lavender. Hubby's tired of lavender. LOL! Cool pot/mug! I like that! JoJo

Aggie, the journey can indeed be frustrating and paved with failures. but each failure is a learning experience. What people with experience can do is help you identify the lesson, and maybe also help you to differentiate the possible from the impossible, but don't let anyone rob you of the journey or of giving it a try. At the risk of repeating myself, you are asking a lot of yourself to get both your foundation planting and your flower gardening out of one spot. If colour and seasonal variation are really important things for you, I really would suggest you consider adding a bed somewhere to give yourself more opportunity in better growing conditions - and that is tough to do nicely if you don't make a new bed out of the same stone. But maybe you can do that. The other thing that is a bit uphill for you is that you can only get so much uniqueness when your plantings are in the same PLACE as everyone else's. I suspect in your old neighbourhood, there was variety in WHERE in the yard people put their plants, as well as variety in what plants they had. If I drive through the neighbourhood, everyone's plants are probably at the foundation, and if only the details vary, the overall impression is still very similar. So your bed at the foundation is working against your desire to do something original on two counts. But it can be done... if you haven't already asked in the conifers forum, ask there for some suggestions for specialty conifers that would do well in these conditions. You do need evergreen plants - the bones, so to speak - and they can be broadleaf or needled evergreens. If you want a lot of variety in your flowering plants, you might enjoy having repeats of some interesting evergreens... I keep thinking of Chamaecyparis 'Wissel's Saguaro' but that might just be because I like it a lot. No idea if it works in your conditions. Even boxwoods would look good as consistent, repeated forms to offset the variety. If, on the other hand, you want consistency in the flowers (all purple petunias or peach roses), then go for variety in the conifers. Who knows, you might develop a talent for topiary :-) Some of my favourite yards are amazing topiary confections. I don't have the patience or the discipline for it though. Then you can do amazing things with quite ordinary plants. Pruning makes all the difference between green blobs and interesting shapes. Broadleaf evergreens will also offer some options for you; try asking for advice at a couple of nurseries - not big box stores. I don't know if the Ilex family would work or not, but if so, Ilex 'Mariesii' is a lovely plant - varies in form, can have some fun with it. Whitecap is right that people like me from outside your area may not be much use for specific plant recommendations, but we can help with form, and process. I've linked below to a site that explains the principles of landscape design in a way that I like. It doesn't all translate to the design of a single bed, but you can maybe play with some of the ideas. Karin L Here is a link that might be useful: Principles of landscape design

I should have been more careful when I wrote that the F. wislizeni was "flowering for the first time"...in fact it was flowering for the first time FOR ME...it didn't do anything last year when I got it. In fact, when I got it, there were seven or eight seed pods attached. IME (and confirmed by others), this is one of the easiest cacti to germinate, with nearly 100% germination, and the seedlings are almost bullet-proof. Here are mine after a bit longer than a year: It is also incredibly generous with its seed, and I have, erm, a few left over from the 7 or 8 pods. Anyone want a few thousand? :) Chris, thx for the link...but I'm surprised they're treating this as new news :) The TCSS have been propagating these for years and were kind enough to donate them so that each attendee at the 2009 CSSA conference got one as a gift. Here's mine, just developing the wide spines, and a long way from blooming! Cheers, -R

Val- The Clematis Tower is only about five feet tall. I loved the way it looked so much last spring that I made another just afew feet away. I already had another tower structure exactly the same that I was not using for anything so I just bought more clematis and made another one. Will see how they both look this spring as I prunned the original quite heavily after bloom last year. Usually I just leave it. Julia- I just love my roses. It took me years after I started my garden redos until I got into roses but I wanted lots more color and so I tried roses. That got me to the rose crazies, which came long before my daylily crazies. Now I absolutely can not immagine my garden without the roses. If your pink or yellow turned into red then the roses died above the graft and what you had blooming is the rootstock. Next time bury the grafts deeply or better yet, try own root roses. Kay- The second rose shot is of the shrub rose section in the front yard. There are a batch of pink and pinkish roses showing there in the picture all jumbled up together. You know I like them that way. They start from left to right to be CITRUS SPLASH (multicolored), RUFFLED CLOUD (center of the shot) and GREETINGS (single toward the back). By the way for anyone thinking about rose spacing, these are planted about 18 inches apart and there are more in there were not in bloom in the picture.