I recently had a neighbor approach me as I was fixing some rotted siding on my garage. This is the neighbor whose lawn is saturated with creeping charlie. He asked, hey with all the money you are putting into this house, are you planning on staying here awhile? First, the repairs we were making weren't for cosmetic purposes, they were more functional. I'd assumed, "all the money" meant all the landscaping we've done ourselves. I love my yard, and I regret not getting started on it sooner when we purchased our home in 2004, we waited a few years and focused on the interior, with no relaxing, private, soothing patio to relax on. But, oh, today, we can enjoy sitting on our patio on our very small lot, with privacy from our neighbors. It's nice, and would I love to purchase a home with the landscaping already done? You bet, but I don't regret that I had to do it myself, because now I'm hooked and I love what I've learned - gardening and landscaping is very therapeutic to me. I've also wondered how much is too much, but I've been told by neighbors that I'm their inspiration, and we have people stopping at the front of our house to view our property from time to time, so we are heading in the right direction, especially as plants begin to mature. I have a small back yard, and yet in my rear yard I have a poplar tree (soon to be replaced), a mature lilac shrub, a hedge of privets, 2 smokebush trees/shrubs, a green giant thuja, an emerald green thuja, 5 purple leaf sand cherries, a serviceberry, a red japanese maple, a heptacodium, and a katsura willow tree, among various perennials, vines, and evergreen and deciduous shrubs. I'm thinking of adding a degroots spire and replacing the poplar with a dogwood or magnolia. The placement for each works, and creates a nice lush private space for us. I have run out of planting space, but I don't intend to lose more lawn, so now it's just waiting for everything to reach maturity and a matter of enjoying what we created. As long as you are comfortable in your own space, that's all that matters. There are a couple homes that we see on our walks in the neighborhood, with the front lawn completely over done in an awkward cottage style. There's nothing wrong with the style, but I think when homes like that are wedged between other homes with more open or formal landscaping, it looks odd and out of place. I feel sorry for the immediate neighbors. In my opinion when all you see is the landscaping from the curb and not the house, that's when you've gone overboard. I dread the day we sell our home and someone who doesn't appreciate what we've done lives here. We joke about it sometimes. But, I've recently heard from some new owners in the neighborhood that others talk about the work we've done on the house with the "striped awnings", so it's nice to hear when you've invested so much sweat into improving it and making it your own. I don't care if anyone thinks we've put too much money into our house. We didn't buy to flip it, and I don't ask everyone else how they spend their money.

Cutting them back only delays flowering. It doesn't stop it or harm the plants. In fact, cutting them back makes them fuller and invigorates them. Better to cut them back than not. If you've got brown growth with new shoots cut all the brown growth back to the lowest buds even though they are dormant. It will sprount out more vines. All Clematis, no matter what variety they are should be hard pruned the first few years.

Whoa, if you get a degree in industrial arts you get to acquire carpentry textbooks along the way?!? Sweet! Kim, I've always enjoyed/appreciated your contributions; given the wisdom of trial and error that was behind them, I see why they stood out. My mom got us a couple of the Reader's Digest fixit books (have to run downstairs, one of them might be the very one you have); I like the way they are encyclopedic and detailed. I know Jane Powell but not the Small Houses books (do you mean The Not So Big stuff by Susanka, or the Small House anthologies from Fine Homebuilding?) Thanks for mentioning books; I think I might start a reference book thread for this forum. Hey Casey, THANKS for taking the bait. And you are NOT a bloody genius, you are an old house DEITY for crying out loud! Would you please start your own show on youtube? Or maybe just a house tour? Even Petch house has youtube videos. Or, do you already have a project blog and everyone knows about it but me? Actually for someone with a degree in historic preservation, I am impressed with how low-key your posts come across; they read more like an old friend who's "been there" and wants to pass along lessons learned along the way, it's really very nice and encouraging. But if you ever want to browbeat me feel free; I would take it as a compliment. To be honest if I post about something I'm thinking of doing to my house, and you don't opine, I figure one of two things is going on: 1) you're not on the forum; or 2) you're politely disapproving. Most of the time I assume it's 2 because you seem to be pretty consistent around here. But I just want to say, and I hope I speak for many, that I love love love your posts, especially when I'm searching on a problem I'm trying to solve and something from you pops up! (PS I finally got around to using that general finishes gel varnish you recommended and it was fantastic, thank you; I will post photos to the woodworking forum sometime before the next census.) Oh, and I love the way you "aged" the color tones in the new pine beadboard in your kitchen; reminds me of the pine in my grandmother's kitchen. When I was really little I used to look at the gleaming pores and think it was the closest wood could get to 24K gold.

Much better news that the update I was expecting when I opened this. UTIs can be really bad and a bit tricky to doagnose in pets as well as people (young or old) with limited communication. Glad to know it's good news and she's doing better.