How nice this thread got bumped! I enjoyed re-reading it and thinking about how much the yard has changed in a year. My bird-friendly yard is evolving. Have made great progress removing invasives, particularly Bittersweet, Buckthorn, and Norway Maples (treework cost me $2000 last year and there's still one GINORMOUS Norway maple left). There was a lot of brush created by all this tree/shrub work. Some was burned this Spring, right smack in the middle of the Oriental bittersweet patch, but the rest is in piles. The brush piles attract a lot of birds, particularly Sparrows, Cardinals, Juncos, and Wrens. The birds also love the back half-acre, which is wild and full of Crabapples, Choke Cherries, White Pine, and still some invasives like Honeysuckle and Autumn olive. Also making great progress on growing bird-friendly natives. Purchased another 50 native tree/shrub seedlings from the NH Nursery. That makes 130 total between this year and last - all of which ultimately make berries/nuts for the birds and wildlife. Most of them are in holding beds and haven't flowered yet, too little, but I've given away some and started to plant out a few. I winter-sowed many native species of perennials, annuals, and vines. Exactly where all this stuff is going, is not completely clear at this point, but I'm creating lasagne beds like crazy! The birds are always flitting around the yard and it's only going to get more interesting and fruitful for them (hopefully). It's great!

The idea for the shallow pool was to be a place to sit on a beach chair and read a book. Because of the slope on that side of the house it would have required much higher retaining walls to have the main pool in that location. The aesthetic goal was to be able to see water upon entering the home. Since we also wanted the sound of the waterfall this is the solution our landscape architect came up with. We didn't want a hot tub. The main pool is 3.5 feet deep on either side and 5.5 feet in the middle. We didn't want a deep end since in our previous home everyone always congregated around the shallow end.

I learned having a vegetable garden is great! No kidding, it's my first year having my own. Pretty modest start, with a single 4'x8' raised bed, then again, I don't have a ton of estate on my small suburban lot. What I grew in there: two red tomato plants, three cherry tomato plants, one Italian, three cucumber plants, a few green beans, some shallots. Got a nice steady harvest of cucumber starting in mid-summer. Got plenty of tomatoes from all plants, but season was late for everything and still have lots of green ones on there, but they are plump and large. Have started to eat some a few weeks ago. Had our first frost a couple of days ago, but I cover with a tarp whenever there is a nightly threat. September weather has been really nice so far though, maybe not ideal for kick-starting the ripening process, but it's starting to get a bit crappier now, maybe things will progress a bit faster. I may have 50-60% of my crop still on the plants. I was lucky and did not get any significant pest or disease and I did nothing to prevent it really. For next season, I plan on having two more raised beds of same dimension as well as growing a few plants in large containers/buckets. I learned I should space tomato plants more than 12" apart, as I was told by someone who gave me seedlings. I should also figure out the support scheme before I need it. Same for cucumbers.

Mary from NY, On the subject of midge and hybrid rugosas....in the wild we know that roses usually do not grow in large single species groups as we are prone to grow them in our gardens. There is one rose here and another yonder, in nature. For a midge to find a wild rose bush, and locate its growing tip specifically, could be a formidable task for a tiny insect that spends its life at ground level mostly, and rose bushes are far apart. I believe each rose bush has its own population of midge living at or near the ground beneath it. They appear to be home bodies, not usually traveling far in search of a rose except when growing tips are scarce, or other factors like the wind come into play. I was told by an entomologist friend that the female midge probably follows an unique scent trail given off by a rose's growing tips in locating the correct part of the rose to lay her eggs. Makes sense to me. Now comes into play our hybrid rugosas. I grew/tried over 30 varieties of hybrid rugosas, and found not one of them susceptible to midge....beautiful, powerfully fragrant flowers all season long. Why? Perhaps their growing tip scent trail is not alluring to midge? Maybe there is a toxic substance to midge maggots found in hybrid rugosa growing tips? The rugosa species is native to cold East Asia. Midge may not even exist there. The frilly growing tips of hybrid rugosas may not feel right to a female midge, so she goes elsewhere in search of a proper place to lay her eggs. Whatever the case, the hybrid rugosas I grew for a number of years never were bothered by midge. If they were, they would have been 'dead ducks', since spraying for midge would likely have severely damaged their foliage. Their foliage is tough, but not able to take chemicals of any sort, even foliar Miracle Grow feedings. Now a mild organic foliar feeding like fish emulsion, manure tea, or seaweed could not do any foliar damage. I never used these on my hybrid rugosas, so I don't know for sure. Sharon's Polareis looks like a real winner. I never grew it. I think it came out into commerce after I got out of hybrid rugosas. From the photos on HMFR, of bush shots of Polareis, it looks like the heaviest blooming hybrid rugosa variety I have ever seen! My favorite three hybrid rugosas I grew, were/are: Henry Hudson, Schneekoppe (Ger.); (aka. Snow Pavement, "Pavement" meaning ground covering or ground carpeting), and Roseraie de l'Hay. Mary, I hate to see you get out of roses. Midge is a very disheartening plague, and gut punches you like a street fighter. Hybrid Rugosas are the light at the end of the tunnel. Moses