Good seeing you here RiverNymph...impressive list, hope we can trade, if you'd check my list and let me know. Btw, very first post in Seed Exchange : Sticky:Read before Posting by GWTamara has links to basics such as where to edit Members Page and Seed Exchange list, besides these are among other helpful sites at the bottom of the page. Happy trades, Bea

I love reading gardening books! My three that I reach for at the end of winter to get me going are: The Cottage Garden by Christopher Lloyd (its like the Bible of garden books for me) English Cottage Gardening for American Gardeners by Margaret Hensel (Tasha Tudor wrote the foreword) Front Yard Gardens Growing more than Grass by Liz Primeau Many of the plants are out of my zone but I just look at the pictures, read and get inspired. The Tasha Tudor book is amazing so if you like that you will love these. I think the Christopher Lloyd and Liz Primeau book are in paperback, the other one is a little pricey . Happy Reading!

I feel your frustration. We have gone the whole gambit over 15 years --- bark, wood chips, mulch, rocks, hazel nuts, ground covers, etc. We have some pine trees that shed LOTS of needles every year. And the shade is fairly dense. Grass and ground covers do poorly, but my wife plants hostas, ferns, vinca, and other shade loving plants. But we have a lot of space that is bare. My wife fills in with pansies, begonias, etc and some pots to create a nice garden. This means she needs to "work" the bare spots. Sitting or being on your knees in hazel nuts is not fun, nor are hands full of slivers from bark. Our experience is this: Bark slivers. It also depletes nutrients from the soil. It is chunky and it works up against the stems of more fragile plants. Didn't want to stay where we put it. Mulch is nice, but breaks down fast. Also, kids and dogs track it into the house. Add a little dust and rain (we get a lot of rain) and it gets messy. Straw is difficult to work with and looks strange in a finished garden. Hazel nuts last forever, but the shells are hard and cut your hands, feet, and knees. And it is expensive. Our dogs won't walk on it. Ground covers don't grow well in our garden area and when they do, seem to clash with the garden purpose. Rocks looked weird except as border edges. Gravel looked like someone messed up, it wouldn't stay in place, and got "dirty" looking fast. OH--- sand was a disaster! Wood chips, particularly hemlock, worked the best as long as not too chunky. They will break down over time and need to be refreshed. But my wife doesn't like the way it looks over a large area near the house; it looked dirty and unkempt except when new. We ended up using patio tiles for parts of the garden, ground covers, and wood chips. Sounds weird, but looks nice. The point is, each landscape is unique and you need to decide the function and activity. Is it a garden where you plant other flowers (annual) mixed with perennials? Shade or sun? Small or large area? Traffic or proximity to house? Etc, etc, etc. These factors influence what will work best. In our case, in the final analysis, the trees took care of the situation for us; nice thick mats of pine needles that we left alone! LOL!

Thank you all who responded. The suggestion of cards for her to send at Christmas was good. I'll take some. I do have a lap robe packed. She did tell me that she needed one when I asked yesterday. Her son is in the process of emptying out her Seniors apartment and I know she will be getting a few essentials from there for making her space her own as much as possible. The lap desk she has is a flat board type of thingy that rests over the arms of her electric wheelchair. She can go to the social room with it to color, work on puzzle books and interact with the other residents. Everything I am taking is contained and hopefully won't be a problem to store. I know that a place to put stuff can be an issue. I would love to take her on an outing, but she is confined to her electric wheel chair and there is no way we can accommodate it. Again thank you all. After seeing the place today, I'll know better what to take next visit. Or what to bring back home this time.