Just wanted to follow up on the "eyesore" garden with the big concrete wall, across the path from my potager. I have been trying to figure out how to 1) make it NOT an eyesore, and 2) make the area part of the potager across the walk, with some feeling of continuity. The first thing I had to do was get in there and clean this little garden area up. This meant pulling tons of daylilies (they'll be back) and big weeds, and raking to leave the area so that I can put mulch in. So now there are patches of daylilies on the left and right of this garden(instead of randomly all over it), and the weeds are mostly gone. Once the daylilies were cleared out the hostas that I was going to ditch looked pretty nice, so they are staying, and our birdhouse on a post stands out among them.It's amazing how different an area can look once you have cleaned it up! Next we purchased two more white vertical trellises (square hole type, framed)to put close in front of the ugly concrete wall, connected together with the other three in a panel, with the trellises on each end curving inward, to sort of frame the garden area in the back. I'm going to transplant a mandarin honeysuckle to the back and train it up these panels. In the meantime, I got a dwarf yellow delicious apple tree at half price (what luck), and I put that in toward the front of the garden. It is aligned with the two similar trees we have down the side of our potager, so hopefully this will provide some continuity from one section to the other. We have an old (but functioning) copper birdbath that would go well in the garden, and I found a sweet bunny sundial that is little but will be a nice addition I think. I haven't decided yet whether to put a path into this new garden area; I will definitely post some pictures when this is done, so by then I will know!

Hmmm; what's European? olive oil grapes biscotti baguettes cheese old maps versailles What if you got postcards, or pics from travel magazines, w/ a "romantic Europe" feel to them, and made them into some sort of sculpture? Maybe cut and glued a pyramid from posterboard, and then placed the pictures on it? Or use postcards, and cut slits in them so they're interlocking, kind of like these toys, or like the link below, for a house-of-cards effect? The hard part might be getting postcards from Europe--you can find them on eBay and at specialty realtors, (here's another) but they may not be cheap enough, unless you can get someone in Europe to send you some? Or fold photos, or wrapping paper, into some sort of basket? Or, if you were going to do favors, you could have the favors be the centerpiece (perhaps small bottles of olive oil (also, don't put too much pressure on yourself--centerpieces aren't supposed to be the star of the show; "forgettable" is fine) I still like the idea of food as centerpiece, or dessert as centerpiece. Or just some great piece of pottery, which perhaps you could borrow or rent? Here is a link that might be useful: how to make a house of cards

Thanks for the further suggestions. There is a lot more sun on the right end. Lilies do well. I think delphiniums would be fine there. On the shady left, I just had to cut down an overhanging branch due to the trunk cracking in a heavy snow, that may make the left end more sunny than it has been before. Hopefully my gold hostas will not get fried. I’m thinking about a monkshood in the shadier end too. I think the path idea, though it appeals to me, will be dependent on whether I can get at least 2 of the bushes behind it dug out. Though I love the way it looks, I can’t keep frosted Brunnera alive. I was slowly getting some to expand in the backyard, but the lack of snow cover seems to have done them in too. They would be up by now if they were alive. A plain green one in another bed is up. One silvery plant that came to mind is pulmonaria. That does well in one bed around a tree (same location where the silver Brunnera croaked). I have one I got in trade (so don’t know that name) that is almost all silver, with just a fine green edge, rather than spotted. Since I have not done much planting around the gate location recently, I don’t know how the drainage compares to the adjacent hosta bed at the left, which is at the base of a very slight slope. Since I have a lot of gold and purple, the easy route would be to just use Hakonechloa macra 'Aureola’, since I already know I can grow that. Though where I have it now gets a lot of sun, conditions for both areas would be comparable. At least for now, I can’t extend the stepping stones. It will be a while before I can kneel well. It was a marathon of kneeling to prepare the base, paver base, etc., and lay the stones 2 years ago. The gate color I’m keeping. I matched the original paint, which a friend told me was a very traditional shade for garden fence in France where this came from. I have an outdoor metal/wood bench on the patio which I will paint to match. It also goes well with my house trim.

5" ... so sleek. This mid century modern design features top quality unfinished brass. This brass has character - not too shiny and has a softer look that fits many modern interior designs. 5"D X 5"W X 10"H •5" Wall Canopy •Socket: Standard Medium Base (e26/e27) •40 Watt Small Globe G16.5 (Bulbs Included) https://www.houzz.com/products/geometric-brass-black-mid-century-wall-sconce-light-prvw-vr~151800228