Lindasewandsew gave me an idea. Oh, if only I had Calif. weather!!! I could put a train station over it and put in a train. The sunken garden is happening because of a large tapering hunk of ledge which makes the lay of the land awkward to use otherwise. But would make a great "mountain" for the train to climb. We could put in trestles. Bonsai the trees and shrubs to keep them in scale. We could build a village. Put a barn on the outskirts of the village with pasture for the minature cows and horses. A little tractor could be plowing the corn field, which could be graced with vangy's scarecrow. Oh, what possibilities! The train could pass by the farm on the way out of town then head up the "mountain". A water fall on the edge of the "mountain" could form the "lake" below at the other edge of town. The lake could have docks for boats and for a plane. Off the lake could be a river with a mill and working water wheel. Of course the farm would have to have chris2u's windmill. Boy, wouldn't that be a blast to build and to play with! All of that because of a well pipe. Who would have thought. lol Actually that sounds like such fun I may have to build it in the cellar!

you could technically transplant plants anytime, but preferably do it while the plants are dormant. In this case Wheeley, best to take a large root ball disturbing the roots as little as possible. Sedums do have retain good moisture in their leaves and have a very good chance of survival. Sedums so easily propagate using stem cuttings alone. Last year I propagated several plants from one plant(autumn joy) by sticking stems directly in the ground. This plant has a high survival rate. Tulips are still fine for as long as you do the same thing. My thoughts on this however is that most tulips do not perform as great as their first year of bloom in your garden which is why the Dutch practice replanting new bulbs every fall. Might just be too much trouble trying to save them. However - like I said, it's up to you. If there are plants that have not come up yet - then it's still dormant and therefore it's the best time to transplant them. They basically won't 'feel' a think when they 'wake up' in a new place. For larger plants that already have leafed out, give them a good drink of water the day before - just to give them enough nourishment before transplanting them.

Here'a a dash of "reality check" for you. If renting either an RV or an apartment is too expensive, then re-think your entire remodel. Typically remodels will cost a lot more than you expect AND take more time as well. Nasty fact of life. If you're stretched to the limit fot the remodel, then come up with some contingency plans. Ours was to fire the contactor and do all the finish work (flooring, plainting, kitchen) ourselves, which took several months, working evenings and weekends. We remodeled the living areas of our house, completely gutted it. But the three bedrooms and two baths upstairs were untouched. We managed to cram all the furniture and boxes into the two spare bedrooms and the garage, even tho one still was DH's officem so we left just room for him to get to a desk and a chair! We have a 350 sq ft workshop behind the garage, and we already had some cabinets and a sink, and countertops, so we created a kitchen down there with microwave, toaster oven, electric fry pan, and that's where we had the TV. We even managed a couple of funky 'dinner parties' with that arrangement. ALl told, we were in this arrangement for almost 9 months, until we started to put our new kitchen together and we slowly moved back into the house. Which took about a year all together. But we never had to leave the house.

I'd like to see the flame spread rating. Re-cycled plastic interior panels I've looked at, such as EchoPanel, have the highest flame spread rating. Worse than mobile homes? However, in a 25-year mortgage, I’m estimating, with conventional energy costs, you can save between $50 to $80,000 in 25 years.” Poorly written article -- just sloppy. For example, do they really mean the lower end is $50? Or did they mean $50,000? I wonder what sort of off gassing the panels may have and for how long... Expanding upon that thought, we drink from those bottles. If this off-gassing thing is all that bad, should we be doing that? There are energy costs involved with recycling and no one discusses that issue. There is mileage for the recycling trucks, mileage to deliver the material to a recycling plant, energy to fabricate the new material. Is it really better for the environment? Before anyone jumps on me, I do recycle although I must drive to the pickup point, not having curbside pickup. Most of my furniture is recycled, being antique. I share your concerns. The right order is Reduce - Reuse - Recycle. We should use less and re-use as much as possible and eschew single-use plastics as much as possible. I'm pretty sure most people -- if they think about it at all -- imagine that your Coke bottle goes to the recycling plant, where it is sanitized and returned to the Coke plant, where it's refilled. The reality is far more messy and labor intensive. Recycling helps with the landfill problem, but landfills aren't our only problem.