The weather has not been very cohesive to taking pictures lately, so one of these is from this past spring and the landscape photo is from a couple weeks ago. I cropped both to try and get the right affect. My adventurous and demur (not really!) kitty A sunset scene from near our place, which I think would be better if the trees on the right were taller. I'll be keeping this assignment in mind for future photography for sure, it really is a nice effect that one could get very creative with. Thanks again ladies :)

Hiya, Looks like you really have your work cut out for you. It might be really helpful to visit some established gardens in Vegas to learn more about what really works down there. I visited the Gardens at the Springs Preserve when I was at a Landscape Confrence 4 years ago, and have remained on their mailing list. I can't belive the scope of classes, tours and demonstartions they offer, it's absolutely wild! It is under 4 acres and is very walkable, and everything is well i.d'd Looks like it has been established at least 10-12 years, so you can see some nice, fairly mature specimens. I believe it is sponsored by the SNWA(S. Nevada Water Authority.) Reno needs to catch up I'm afraid; we have a botanical garden at Rancho San Rafael park, but its pretty feeble by comparison. Larger than its Vegas sibling, but less info is disseminated.Maybe things will change w/ the new director Bill Carlos who recently came aboard. Here is a link to the Gardens at the Springs Preserve: http://www.springspreserve.org/html/gardens_visitor_information.html I don't know what the topography + architecture is like at your parents new house (probably a stucco ranch, flat as a pancake?) but you might want to introduce some mounding with some rocks/boulders. Quite a few interesting gropundcover and perennial plants will enjoy growing in this type of situation, plus it makes it easier for your folks in that they don't have to bend + kneel so much. Also investigate container gardening (on a separate drip zone). I saw some really cool planters in Vegas, that thrived in a patio setting. Some were very elaborate and had ornamnetal grasses combined with different annuals that trailed out of the pots.Very luscious! Good luck in your gardening adventures down south! Here is a link that might be useful: Gradens @ Springs Preserve

All right class, this discussion has degenerated into composting bodies, so now you all have to sit up straight in your seats and listen to the tale of Miss V. and the Mystery Hole. Once upon a time last summer, I had a neighbor down the road who ran a puppy mill, let his dogs run wild, beat his girlfriend and entertained the local motorcycle gang. One day I came home to find the dogs in my yard, and for no good logical reason I chased after them. The dogs (six of them) headed into the woods down a path that we keep mowed. (Curving path for those who must know.) After a bit they disappeared, largely due to the fact that they were a lot more used to running than I was. I turned down a short spur off the main path to see if they had headed that way, thinking as I did so that I didn't remember this side path being there before. When I got to the end of that little path, I didn't find any dogs but found something far more interesting. Someone had come along and cut squares into a clearing in the forest floor. The area that was marked off into these aquares measured over six feet long and at least three feet wide. My mind immediately went into newsprint mode, and I could almost see the words in front of me: "The homeowner discovered what apppeared to be a shallow grave..." I headed back to the house and phoned my husband and son to be sure that this was not something they had done. I also checked with the neighboring Boy Scout camp to see if this had anything to do with a new scouting badge. Negative responses all around. My husband advised me to call the sheriff. The first young man who came out backed out of the woods pretty quickly. He decided it definitely had to be kicked upstairs to a higher authority. The next day, I had three plainclothes detectives show up. They asked me to grab some shovels and they headed back into the woods with me. When we got to the spot, they looked down at their suits and dress shoes, then at my jeans and sneakers, and voted me the best candidate to begin digging. I positioned the shovel along one of the lines of the squares, poised my foot on the edge of the shovel and gave it a good, hard shove. THUNK! I hit wood. At that point, I turned away and spent a few minutes contemplating the wisdom of having just eaten an Asiago cheese bagel moments before the detectives arrived. Once the brave men were assured that I was ready to go on digging, we found out it really wasn't very hard to dig. Someone had used a sod cutter to cut the squares into the ground and they were very easy to lift off the wood with a pitchfork, uncovering a four foot by eight foot sheet of plywood. At that point, I decided that I really shouldn't deprive these gentlemen of being the first to see what was under the plywood. They slowly pried it up to reveal . . . an empty hole. But what an empty hole it was! It definitely was large enough to hold a body, and it had been reinforced with two-by-fours so that a deer or other critter crossing over it would not collapse it. It had been dug at least three feet deep through solid clay. The interesting thing was that there was no dirt pile anywhere around the hole; someone had bothered to haul away all the spoils. In the end, the best theory was that someone was poaching deer in the woods and was using the hole to stash the carcass until they could come back unobserved with an ATV to haul out the meat. I still wonder about this, as someone went to a lot of trouble to build this hole. They hauled in a sodcutter, a sheet of plywood, various other pieces of wood and possibly a chainsaw or other brush cutting equiment to clear the path. They hauled out about three cubic yards of dirt, most of which was heavy clay. All of this trouble for a deer? A couple of weeks later, the neighbor shot his girlfriend's cat, was hauled off to jail and his father sold the house. I see far less of the sheriff than I used to and have found no other unexplained graves, um, holes, ever since. The ex-girlfriend ended up in a Wisconsin jail on a parole violation, a new address that just may have saved her life if you ask me. Miss V.

Great idea! I'm looking at my computer, that has your computer on it, that has Ian's pics on it...Cooool! Kt