I think I am going to lay rock in my circular garden, Tired of fighting the weeds and grasses. I have quite a bit of shrubbery out the around it, so only need a few spire-type junipers and etc. like yours and I can convert it. I have Bridles Wreath (veil), native Red Cedars (junipers), a Lilac, a Redbud, and two evergreen shrubs, plus the arbor with New Dawn and a clematis growing up on it. I also have a couple of pots of variegated shrubs (can't recall the name). Maybe something with the powdery blue color. Shrubs do fine out there, but I have given up trying to grow flowers. It is very, very dry out there, and I am tired of fighting the elements. There is plenty of native red rock out here in the country along the roads. The country digs it up every time they grade the road and they said I could take all I want. Today, DHM and I are going to the Hilltop nursery to get the free chipped wood mulch. I will need two or three truckloads, but one will be a good start. Not sure I can wrangle him into making more than one trip today. Now to find some columnar junipers. What else would you recommend around the outer edge for the Roman-Greco look like you have? I rooted a spreading juniper and can plant that out there. I promise it won't look just like yours - just using yours for my inspiration. :) Send me an email with suggestions, if you would. I need help! ~Annie

Gracie didn't catch any today and she is in out of the rain. I moved Bill Norris last fall and that bloom was on part that got left behind. I have four scapes on my clump just waiting to bloom. Lullaby Baby had the best budcount last year with 32, but it has some serious competition this year. I counted 30 buds on Ah Youth and 40 buds on Lillian's Tears and Roses. I went out to see how the late openers were and Lillian's Somewhere Between was really holding up well. I hope you are not tired of seeing it.

Kathy, The frog and turtle bed should be easy. Ours is a lily pond in the ground, NOT surrounded by stone. (To me, a whole lot of stonework popping up in the middle of the grassy prairie where we have NO native stone visible just seemed too fake, and I am into having a landscape that fits in with our native prairie....up to a point.) Maybe someday I'll get tired of weedeating back the bermuda to keep it out of the sedges at the water's edge, and maybe then I'll replace it with stonework. Our pond is earth-bottomed so the frogs can dig into the mud to hibernate. It has water lilies, which gives them pads to sit on....and they DO sit on them! (I can divide the water lilies in the spring and bring some to the plant swap in April if your water feature will have room for lilies.) It has tall spiky plants (pickerel rush, horsetail reed, cattails (have them and wish we didn't) for the dragon flies to perch upon. The pond has a log in it for the turtles to climb on for sunning purposes. One end of the log rests on the foot of the 2' deep pond and the other end rests on the pond bank. Several turtles can sun on it at one time. Native prairie sedges planted themselves in the soil at the edge of the pond and the bermuda grass runs right up to the sedges. The sedges give frogs and turtles on land some taller vegetation for protection, because the chickens eat frogs (oh, yes they do!) and so do a couple of the cats (or, at least, they try to). In a bed several feet away from the pond, I have lots of plants to give the frogs and turtles a safe place to hang out on land when they wish to--away from the pesky cats and chickens. This bed has fairly low-growing junipers (a couple of feet tall, but with room underneath for both turtles and frogs), a chaste tree (vitex agnus-castus), a chinaberry tree (we had one when I was a kid and I love it even though it is not the highest quality tree), roses, swamp mallows, and various annual and perennial flowers. I let the growth here stay pretty thick to give the little critters protective cover. I also have cannas and the giant green elephant ears nearby to give the pond area a sort-of tropical look, and to give the frogs something to sit on. They like to sit on the big broad leaves. The turtles like to dig into sandy soil to lay their eggs, so a patch of sandy soil that can be dug up is handy, but they will lay their eggs wherever they choose. We have all kinds of frogs and turtles and, needless to say, all we had to do was dig a hole in the ground (Elvis, the guy who put in our tornado shelter dug the hole with his backhoe the same day he put in the tornado shelter) and the frogs and toads and turtles magically appeared. Our 'water feature' is more or less round--I didn't want it to look too perfectly round--and about 15' across. It is two feet deep, more or less, and has sloped sides so any small animal or child that falls in can crawl out. There is not a filter or pump, just Mother Nature, and the water is clear most of the time although we get an occasional algae bloom after a big rainfall in hot weather. We have a few mosquito fish and goldfish in the pond to keep mosquito larvae under control. A frog or turtle bed sounds like fun. I bet you could find stepping stones in a turtle shape if you like that short of ornamental thing in the garden. Of all the various landscape features we have, it is always the lily pond with its frogs and turtles and dragon flies and toads and fish that gets EVERYONE'S attention. People just want to sit and stare at it. I guess there's a little kid inside of each of us, and that kid loves the fogs, turtles and other creatures. The only wild things not welcome in our pond are the great blue herons who swoop in to stand in the pond and eat every now and then. The guineas always tell us when the herons have invaded the pond by gathering nearby and squawking their heads off. Then, the dogs and I walk out the door about 15' from the pond, and the heron flies away. Then, Honey, our little blonde terrier mix, chases the heron for as long as she can--usually until it's flown several hundred feet away, and then she returns to us, all proud and excited that she has protected us from the dreaded Great Blue Heron. (Yes, it is ALWAYS a zoo here no matter what.) I also like to have a lot of night-blooming flowers (daturas, brugmansias, four o'clocks, moonflower vine, etc.) nearby so we can enjoy looking at them and also enjoy their lovely nighttime fragrance while sitting out by the pond in the evenings. And, too, I keep several tropical plants in large pots near the pond because the smaller tree frogs love to hide in their foliage. (Not all frogs, after all, are water lovers! The tree frogs are one of my favorite local creatures.) Dawn

It was a very chilly 44 degrees this morning in central Florida. We had to go to Gainesville to the plastic surgeon to have Harry's stitches out. We no more got in the door when they called him back and two minutes later we were on the way home. It's still pretty cold but will be back in the 80's early next week, so I'm enjoying it! I feel like baking something, but I don't know what.Every time I think of something, it would require a trip to the store and I'll pass on that!