hey kippy the hippy (great name btw) Thanks for responding! i am actually not happy with the bench that is there it looks to 'light" not in color but in weight and doesn't really anchor that area at all. Also unfortunately the gate swings in 3 feet past the window and cannot be flipped to open the other way. I already thought about that lol i hate that it opens in. We aren't allowed to alter the fence due to home owners association rules. (its like the gustapo here with that stuff) My husband is adamant that the gate has to open to a full 90 degree angle. I am not concerned with that but he is fighting me on that one. That makes having something that takes up the full window impossible because the furniture's depth and width would then impair that 90 degree angle. Im not quite sure what exactly you were suggesting with the metal so maybe you could show a picture of what you were talking about? I also agree with you about making the perimeter plants a bit higher. When we buy the boxwoods they will all be the same size (due to cost of taller ones) My original idea was to do something like you see in this picture here. disregard that there isnt any boxwoods at the edge of the fence because there will be. In this picture you see how it kinda staggers in height with it being 90cm high at the very corners and then stepping down to 60cm and then the lowest parts being 30cm (30cm is roughly 1 ft) It will be a matter of letting them grow to that height which will take a few years so it will have to be short for a while. i cannot afford 1200 euro on boxwoods to buy them already at the necessary height. I am intrigued by your idea of not even doing any underplantings at all and just using mulch instead. i agree an underplanting will get in the way of maintenance of the topiaries. I am concerned that not having anything though might make the garden appear too lifeless. I really appreciate your constructive criticism. Some other people on here might as well have just out right told me it looks like S*** for as rude as they came off to me, but I asked for honest opinions and i got what i asked for so im not complaining lol. Anyways thanks for you great idea!

I just don't understand when someone asks a question about what to do with furniture the person already has and won't be getting rid of, someone sitting on her couch comes in a says "why did you buy that?" "Buy this". If I wanted your advice on what I should replace my furniture with, I would've asked it. I shouldn't have to explain to you that your comments come across as rude. I'm not paying you for advice, and I didn't ask for your opinion on the topic you provided your opinion on. Your question really seems to me to be, "why don't you do what I would've done even though you've already done it because I don't like what you've done." Who goes through the effort to be so obnoxious and then tells the person they've insulted to take a chill pill? I don't feel as though I've wasted any time at all (and its mine to waste, in any event); I have found nearly everyone's comments to be helpful. None managed to be delivered with your gift of disdain, fortunately.

@toronado3800 Zone 6 StLouis This looks like a 4" semi-flex low profile boxspring to me. Could be wrong about the height though. It looks to be a pretty decent fellow. how hard is it to push down on? if they are new or still pretty darned firm and uniform all across these are fine. a platform base is only going to drop your mattress a couple inches. ....Kings have a tendency to high center as it is. This last part where the middle of our brand new Simmons Beautyrest Firm matttress seems to be higher than the sides - is what bugs my wife. Is that a symptom of King mattresses? We thought it was only on Eurotop (memory foam top) mattresses like our prior Simmons. But it appears you are suggesting that switching from our current low profile twin boxsprings to the euro-style slats above may have also create some other unintended negative effect - such as sagging in other places. **PS: yes- those low profile boxspring in the pic is only 1.5 years old & is from our prior Simmons Eurotop that we got rid of because of the memory foam hump in the middle.

The difference I see between garden purchases at big box (Lowe's, Home Depot) stores and independent garden businesses around here (NJ) is the availability of curbside pick up at the independent places. This is not a thing at Lowe's or Home Depot. Also, big box stores (from what I read in the newspaper, under the headline, "Is Mulch Essential?"), are way more crowded. Yesterday the sheriff here raided Lowe's for lack of social distancing and served a notice to stay closed until a health-and-safety plan had been approved by the county. By this morning a plan had been approved--it is essentially the company-wide plan announced weeks ago, but with an explicit limit on the number of customers inside the store at one time. That store has curbside pickup, but not for the garden-center items I need. I had already planned to expand vegetable and cutting-flower plantings, and because of thin, rocky soil almost all of my gardening is in raised beds. Thus, I need soil mix for the raised beds, which is not available for curbside pickup even though they have plenty. The reason seems to be that it can't be shipped, and the ordering process is the same for both shipping and pickup. The independent store that I rely on for hard-to-find things doesn't officially offer curbside pickup, but I'm fairly confident that if I order and pay over the phone, they'll be happy to load everything in the back of my car anyway.