Just purchased a black metal arbor for the garden and must now landscape the arbor area so it blends in with the surrounding garden. Area is mostly shade. Looking for help on choice of shrubs, perhaps a small tree and a good design layout for this arbor area. Appreciate any suggestions.

This weekend has been awesome. It's the first real gardening weekend I've managed this year! Either the weather or gigs have kept me away up til now. My parents were in town and they had a great time watching me and DH buy stuff, put in stuff, weed stuff, etc. And they have more gardening experience than us, so it was fun discussing plans with them and having them tell us that we're doing well! What we did: Weeded lots (the weeds sure loved the three weeks of rain we've had!) Pulled out grass to create a bed under my lilacs (I just stuck bulbs in last fall coz I was lazy, now I'm regretting it as I have to carefully yank grass out from around the plants--frittilaria and grape hyacinth--without yanking the plants). Have a ways to go with that bed, but made a lot of progress. DH mowed the lawn and took apart the scary riding mower and changed the fuel filter and sharpened the blades. He also pruned back lot of the small trees--especially the nasty honey locust trees with the evil pointy thorns that jump out and grab you if you go anywhere near them (I *hate* those trees. I really want to take them all out and replace them with something else but I havent managed to talk DH into it yet.) Planted out allysum, clematis, bleeding heart, hellebore, one black iris ("Before The Storm"), Nemesia, something I dont know the name of (orange petals, blue center, kindof daisy-like in look). Bought hanging baskets: terracotta million bells, purple petunia and something white and something lavender mix. Made railing planters: white petunia/red million bells/blue lobelia. Saw the first hummingbird of the year! Yay!!!! Bought Bayer's Rose and Flower spray to treat the lilies for red lily beetle infestation. I'm going to treat them until they get to full buds and then stop before they flower. I'm hoping that that way I'll get rid of the beetles before the spray would be killing bees as well. Sat on the deck swing for the first time this year! Mom hung out and identified all the birds. She's President of her local chapter of the Audabon society (in Putnam Valley NY) and had a blast. We have a LOT of birds on our property! So cool!

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I'm in the NJ suburbs of Philadelphia--high population density area, and very high cost. You make a good point about cost, but what I'm proposing really couldn't be done for less. I just did a quick search of day camp rates in my area. That would be the kind of experience I'd be offering--not simple daycare. It would be structured, there would be plenty to do (and take home), and I'm a very experienced teacher. Anyway, a week at day camp in my area runs between $800-well over $1000. So for a comparable, small-group, full day (with the option of extending hours) experience with lots of personal attention, I don't think $150-200 is out of line at all. I know it sounds like a lot if you compare it to babysitting rates, but that's not what I'm suggestion. I'm talking about a truly educational, but fun week, during school holidays.