This is an excellent question. I'll start by saying that most of us in the landscape design industry tend to see things only from our own perspectives and our own limited experiences, so you are likely going to get responses that tell you that these people to this and those people do that. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending how you look at it, in any profession (landscape design, landscape architecture, design/build, landscape contractors, landscape maintenanace, ...) there is no standard operating procedure. It is as diverse as the people who make up each component of the industry. That good news is that there is someone out there that will do exactly what you want both in terms of procedure and product. The bad news is that it might take a lot of hunting and leg work to find someone that fits. The key thing is not to get too locked down with the idea that you need only to look for someone who has the title of one of these. The truth is that this type of work is done both well and poorly by some folks in each of the described categories. You should strive for someone (or entity) that typically does what it is you are asking for (product and procedure) rather that someone who is reaching up to it or someone reaching down to it. You want your project to be typical. That means they are competent and capable and you are just as important as the next client. You might find that many LA offices might view your job as less important by comparison to others that they typically do. Although they may be great at what they do, chances are that your project is not really what they do, so that would not make them great for you. You might find an LA that typically does little projects that are not as grand as yours. That would not be good either. If you look hard enough (or just get lucky) you might find an LA that does exactly what you are asking for. Now you can substitute either "design/build" or "landscape designer" for LA in everything I just described and it is equally true. However, people exist under these titles in greater numbers giving you a larger pool to fish in. The biggest pool is the design/build contractor. S/He is often the best value because the goal is not to make a living on designing, but to use design in order to get work. This means that it will often cost less for the design and that the design process can be much more straight forward and direct since they would rather get to the point of building than racking up design hours. The project is designed to work the strengths and profitability of that company which is great if you are familiar with their work and you trust in their "brand". However, your goals might diverge from theirs a bit. The independent designer should be working for you rather than toward the goals of contractors. One problem here is that it is very difficult to know how capable the designer is at making a plan that does not leave too many variables to bidding contractors. A designer is simply someone who designs. Some have great and diverse experience both artistically, technically, graphically, and from a managerial angle. But some are people who just thought it would be cool to do landscape design. So, you really have to do your homework. My opinion is that your best bet in terms of efficiency in finding someone is to search out landscape projects in your area that are very appealing to you on similar priced homes and find out who did the work (local, capability equals your taste, probably a similar budget). People are pretty easy to talk to if you see someone outside and complement their landscape. They'll talk (probably crediting themselves for the ideas). Gush on them and find out who built it. Chances are that it will be a design/build firm simply because there are more of them. I hope this helps. Don't rule out any of them based on title. There are great capabilities in all of these. I'm an LA, by the way.

Thanks for all the info! Norma, those are some great suggestions, and I'm checking them all out. I had looked at sempervivum and liked how it looked, but I didn't want to have to buy dozens of separate plants. Jo: I don't yet know how to post a picture, but if I get time I'll figure it out (although I don't know how I feel about taking a picture of my gardening failure!). In the meantime, all the plants just look kind of . . . sad. A little shriveled and wilty -- as if they're not getting enough water, except I know that's not the problem. The pachyclados (white diamond) looks a little brown around the edges. (I didn't think I left them out too much in the hot weather, but I may have been a little spacey about that. I just didn't expect them to be really heat-sensitive.) I tried two different methods for dividing: some plants I just pulled apart because they looked like separate plants growing in the same pot from the nursery. The others I tried to propagate by cutting (I used rooting hormone). Neither group looks very good. I bought some sort of potting mix to use, but I've since tossed the bag. I hadn't worried a whole lot about the soil, since I've heard so much about how hardy sedums are! The plants are now in small ceramic pots, getting sun until about 2 pm. If all this sounds reasonable, then I begin to worry that the pots are too small -- would sedum for some reason need a larger root system?? Thanks again, Marguerite P.S. If you want to find that pachyclados, the company that sold the ones I bought is online at www.stepables.com.

Being wrapped as well as it is will help, and if it's cryovac'd that's even better, but if you expect to store the meat for long period, and if your barn freezer still holds temperature reliably, it's worth digging it out. Because heat rises, the chest freezer will take in less warm air when you open it, and the more densely packed a freezer is, the more efficiently it runs and the better the frozen packages can keep each other cold. It's important to organize it well, however, rather than having it sit open while you dig through it looking for one last pork chop. Make a list of what you have and where it is, and make a note of everything you add and remove. It helps to tape it to the freezer with a pencil. The high end, newer upright freezers use a system I don't really understand well, with evaporators that remove the moisture from the air that gets in, preventing frost from forming, rather than running through defrost cycles like the old style automatic defrost freezers did. That will give you less freezer burn, but the manual defrost chest freezer is still the recommended appliance for long term meat storage.

It would probably be far cheaper to buy a used one - I see the convection microwave combo offered for $50 to $75 on craigslist often.