Hubby said a year ago "HGTV should be HLTV" meaning Home and Landscaping TV. I want to learn! I WANT to learn more about composting, container planting, good ol' planting dirt, pruning, propagating, new gadets to make gardening a bit easier for us older folks, what plants go well together, fertilizing, etc! The closest I can get is Paul James and now all I see in the wee hours of the morning on weekends are reruns of reruns of reruns of Paul James. I figure that Paul James doesn't have cleavage so, he's out. I've written HGTV before, several times and I've received some very nice 'form' letters back. That's as far as it went. I'd be very happy to email/snail mail anyone who might listen to my idea of what the "G" should stand for in HGTV. Thank you! Amity

This is awesome! I would love a link to the story. I am thinking of calling and e-mailing our local news station and introducing Wisconsin to our efforts at my retirement community where I work. I have gotten residents there involved in the raising process and have held seminars on Butterfly Gardening. I have had two garden tours including members of The Wild Ones, a local garden group invested in saving the Monarch and other threatened and endangered pollinators. I am still trying to get them registered as a Monarch Waystation. I am currently raising a lot of Black Swallowtails and a few Monarch cats. I would love to introduce our new slogan "Got Milkweed" to Wisconsin. We're a fairly green state and this may catch on here too.

How did your own school board representative vote? If he/she happens to also be in opposition to this plan, start there! Tell the rep you are a concerned parent and want to know how you can help. If they voted for it, plan B. Find a rep who is opposed and start talking to that person. Contact other parents who agree with you, lots of them, call all the local schools and ask how to contact the PTA president. Once you have their support, they can organize parents from their school. With this group of parents, ask to meet with the superintendent. We did this at our old district over an issue, he met with us, we gave him an earfull. And a school board member who supported our side of things came,too. It's harder to blow off a group of parents who want to meet with you than just one. Who is the leader of this parent committee that got ignored? You need to speak with that person, too. They may already have a game plan, instead of starting another one, make theirs bigger. At the very least that person will have information you need. That's what I got for now. I have a child in need being very vocal about it, go figure. Let me know what's going on. If I think of anything else, I'll get back to you later.

I guess I should have explained better. The neighborhood has gone seriously downhill since the housing collapse. I had equity once but now owe twice what its worth. Anyway we are the stepchildren of the city, crime is going up and the residents don't take an interest, for the most part. The whole thing has turned into a nightmare really but to make a long story short I can expect no help from the city, been there and done that. The neighbor's yard is huge and this sedge has had years to get well entrenched - if that doesn't get me then the crabgrass will. I used to hoe like crazy this stuff out but then the crabgrass moved into the bare ground, its amazing how that stuff can move a foot or so a night in expanding. Anyway on account of the financial thing I have very little funds to work with and so sodding is out of the question. My neighbors are very unpleasant people so no I don't talk to them. I wish I could move my house and my garden somewhere else, its a simple house but I've done tons of work in landscaping and added a nice big covered patio. If I move I'll never be able to afford another place - it will be to an apartment with a postage stamp deck and I live for summer and my garden. You know if it wasn't for the mud thing I'd almost so OKAY I give up - I don't care what grows here as long as its ground cover so I can quit with the mud tracking in the house. Its really, I guess, a no-win situation. I could get rid of my dogs that would solve the mud problem but I was brought up in a different age/mentality I guess where the person who was screwing up was the one who had to change, now I find myself constantly lowering my standards - and why should I have to lose my dogs, not fair to them for sure. I have puzzled over this and all it does is depress me. The way it is my garden is where I spend most of my time and as long as I don't have to go out into the neighborhood I love it there with my birds and squirrels and flowers and stuff, but the outside keeps working its way in. My children, lke I said, are frustrated with me because grass is not high on their list. It's like they take good care of their cars so how would they like it if their car was always muddy even though they just cleaned it - that might get thru to them better. But the city and my kids and the neighbors have come to an agreement - I'm the problem. Because I want a nice garden. I'm getting depressed thinking of it. As for the tilling, I really didn't mean tilling, I think it just said work it into the ground so that what's down there but not emerged gets exposed to the chemicals. i will try to found more information or find someone in the business who knows, it all gets confused in my mind. I did put down annual grass in the spring and it took over fast but died about July and then I was back to the bare ground. The problem in the fall is that I have lots of trees and about the time its time to do the seeding the leaves start falling and smother any new growth or make it so I can't water. I can't rake the leaves away because the grass seed would go with it. I have spent a fortune on water and seed and I have the ugliest yard to show for it. Maybe I will just put the sedge down I think it said a month before you put down seed and see what happens and if it doesn't work then I either need to adapt / or move. I did try out front putting down some ground cover which survived but it would be very expensive and take years. I dunno. I dunno but thanks for your suggestions I will read again later when I'm not so discouraged. All I want for Christmas is to know I will have my lawn back in spring.