Hello, I saw your post on GardenWeb and wanted to help. I'm a landscaper in Texas and would like to help. To protect yourself, I recommend you do a little homework and find out what is involved in the various aspects of the landscape such as the retaining wall. Then you can interview the landscapers and see who is competent and who is not. Once you've sifted out the Gargoyles you will basically have 3 sets of landscapers left, the Ferrari, the Chevrolet and the Hugo. The Ferrari guy probably showed up in Gucci shoes and threw out numbers that sounded like a new house. The Hugo guy probably had a pickup truck that was falling apart and throws around numbers that sound like peanuts. The Chevy guy is the one you want, he was in a nice truck or car (not a cadillac but not a junker) and his prices are not cheap but they are not outrageous (unless you are a cheapskate and figure a landscaper business should only get $5 an hour). Make sure he has General Liability insurance. Ask if he hires illegal aliens. If he hires illegals he is a corner cutter and willing to "bend" the rules to get things done. Ask if he guarantees his product. Ask to see pictures of his installs, get references. YOU are spending a lot of money so don't hesitate to pre-qualify the guy. Pre-qualify them on the phone if you can, ask them if they have GL and will they provide you a copy of it (everybody SAYS they have it, few of us actually do). If they hit a gas line and have no insurance, I GUARANTEE they will disappear as your house bursts into flames. Ask questions on the phone. Remember, time is money; if I have to drive out to your house and do the dog and pony show, I am not making a dime. Don't call 30 landscapers out to dance on your front lawn, 29 of us are going to be wasting our time; narrow it down to 3 and have them come out, let them know you are looking at 3 total. That is good, it helps them understand they are competing (which we know already). If I discover that I am one of 30, I am not interested. If I am one of 3, I am confident that you will make a good decision and I hope it will be me. If you want to get a basic idea on pricing, here is what we do in Texas. Trees and plants for a multiple install (not just a single tree or plant) are two times the price of the tree or plant to install, price based on nursery prices, not Home Depot or Lowes bargain prices. This includes the amenities for the soil, staking the tree if necessary and a guarantee that the plant will survive the install. Remember, the landscapers reputation is on the line, he isn't going to use questionable rootstock, he is going to use something from a nursery that he has dealt with for years, not the bargain basement homeowner cheap stuff. When I hire subcontractors I have benchmarks that I use, I know if he sasys he can do cement for $3 a square foot he is probably not competent. If he says $9 a square foot I know he is subcontracting it out himself or he is wearing Gucci shoes. Retaining walls. If the wall is more than 4' high it must be engineered, that is, it has to be designed by an engineer or else it will certainly fail. Soil type is also very important, if your soil is loose you may neeed a concrete footer. If your soil is hard you can simply install an aggregate base. Don't forget to put drainage behind the wall or else it will hold water and will push out or even fall over in the rain. Roughly figure on 2 times the cost of the material for simply installing the blocks plus the price of your footer ($7 a square foot for a cement footer and about half that for a compacted aggregate footer). You should come up with a budget though but I understand that you don't have a point of reference yet and that is why you have posted here. I hope this helps, remember that my prices are for Texas and may not be relevant elsewhere. Al

Hi dchall, I'm over in College Station. No, I hadn't found the FAQ yet (I don't think so anyway... Read so much lately!), but I will certainly go hunt it down. On my first couple of posts, I was definitely fixated on NPK... Within a couple of minutes of my reply wondering if I should wait for the soil test, I found an article that turned on the protein/carbs light for me though exactly along the lines of what you are saying. Although the light is on, it's flickering a little still though.... :) I see time after time where people are comparing the NPK of grains/meals. My current assumption is that the NPK of grains is still relevant b/c the microbes I'm trying to feed w/ protein/carbs are releasing it into the soil as they work on digesting the grain (along with lawn clippings, etc.)... So I may still have a little brain fog, but I'll keep researching and put NPK on the mental back burner. I homebrew beer and there is a hops shortage this year, so I decided to plant some several weeks back. I dug up a new planter along the side of the house where I was seeing the yellowing the most. The grass is pretty well rooted. Not terribly deep, but certainly not above ground. (That weekend I would have been happy to have had such a bad problem that all of my roots were in a thatch layer!!! My back still hurts from removing all that grass!). So I do have room for improvement on the root depth, but I THINK that I have caught on to all of this in enough time to not be as bad off as I could have been and can continue to wean it off of water. I had reduced watering last year to about an inch per week, but I did it cold turkey. I've turned off the automatic sprinklers several weeks ago and am trying to just water when the soil is drying now. On the homebrew topic, I read last night that spent grain (barley) is high in protein (but most of the carbs are pulled out in the brew process). I sometimes spread those out on the lawn (blindly thinking "this decays, it's probably good for the lawn"). I'll have to start doing that more regularly. I don't make enough to cover the whole lawn, but it's nice to learn that it is a safe supplement.

Interesting comment about the GF-4. Here's what the web site says: ______________________ Does the Mobil 1 Extended Performance meet GF-4 specifications? How did the new specification impact the development of the high-endurance product line? Mobil 1 Extended Performance contains extra performance additives to deliver exceptional performance and protection. This fully synthetic technology is designed specifically for longer service intervals. While it does not meet all the requirements for GF-4, it provides protection of the critical engine parts well beyond conventional engine oils including conventional GF-4 engine oils, and meets all the engine durability and protection requirements for GF-4. Additionally, Mobil 1 Extended Performance oils exceed the requirements of API SL/CF and various ACEA (European) specifications. _________________ I thought automotive oil below 10W40 had to meet that. Evidently they've found a way around it. Did Mobil 1 15W50 EVER meet GF-4. I had heard in the past that it wasn't subject to the Zinc and Phosphorus limits because it was above the viscocity grade where it was required. Now I wondering if there's any difference in the old and the new Mobil 1 15W50 or if they just renamed it "extended performance" with this new marketing ploy and added a buck to the price.

pinktoes i read your other post on the lighting forum about not wanting to get up on ladders - which I can understand (i just got done putting in 4 recessed trim kits that were 14 feet up - yikes!) I would suggest putting in more switched outlets than what would normally be installed - so that you can put in table lamps or reading lamps that can be controlled by one switch when you enter or leave the room. Not only is it a pain to turn all those little lamp sitches on and off - they tend to wear out too. The switched outlets will give you more flexibility - say down the road you decide you want a wall sconce or some other permanent fixture - you can easily have an electrician tap into one of the outlet boxes to run up a switch leg to power the light. I had the elecricians add a number of what I call half-hot outlets. This is simply a a duplex wall outlet that is wried so one of the plugs is always hot and the other plug is tied to a switch. I put these to the left and right side of each bed location, in corners where we might want table lamps, etc. Now when I enter a dark bedroom, I can flip on the switch at the entrance and the bedroom table lamps turn on. Since your DH is a geek - and so am I - I recommend that he check out www.smarthome.com. They sell a product line called Insteon which I have installed a bunch of into my new home. These are radio controlled dimmer switches and outlets that allow you to add some automation (maybe just a little) into your existing electrical system without re-wiring (what I mean is that you need to replace outlets & switches - but do not need to run new cables.) After we moved into our last house, we quickly discovered that the wiring was not done to support the way we lived in the house. For example - the house was wired assuming we would always enter through the front door - which we rarely did (used the garage entrance instead). Unfortunately - there was no way to turn on the kitchen lights when we came in through the garage - try that at night when it is pitch black inside. AFter many toe stubbings on the kitchen table - we needed a solution that was non-invasive and low cost. I started using remote controlled dimmers and switches to fix these problems myself - and saved a boatload of money by avoiding re-wiring. I simply added a contoller at the garage entrance (taped into an outlet and added a box to house the controller) and then could remotely turn on and off kitchen and other house lights where I installed the remotely controllable dimmers. DW loved it. In my new home, I went crazy with the Insteon products so that not only can I control just about every light in the house remotely - I have programmed scene's (hit one button for the TV viewing scene). I had to do this (this is my story and I am sticking to it) because we have an open floor plan with a lot of lights. For example - our family room has 4 different light circuits - recessed, ceiling fixture, low voltage cans, and floor plugs for table lamps and then 3 different ways to enter and exit the room. Instead of having 12 boxes (4 switches x 3 locations) - I installed 4 remote control dimmer switches and 3 scene controllers. Now when you enter the room you hit one of 6 buttons which will dim all of the lights to preset levels. It was a lot cheaper to wire the house this way because every 3way or 4way circuit is hefty upcharge and every additonal switch is an upcharge. Using the remote control approach in my family room - I had zero 3way/4way cabling, 4 switches, and 3 outlets (where I installed the controllers). I realize that this might be way beyond what you want - just wanted to give you an example of how you can add in this type of automation after the house is done. Best of luck with the plan.