So, the short wall I had done in front of my house is done. It really turned out exceptionally well. I really did not want to have to dig up the roses this late as they were fully leafed out but no choice if I wanted the wall done (and I really wanted it done this spring). So they said don't worry, we will replant the roses in a temp spot and as soon as that side of the wall is done, we will put them back. Well, I plant my roses deep and 4 of the roses to be moved are SUNSPRITES that I have had now for three springs. They are going own root. The idiots planted them with the new roots completely out of the ground up in the air. All the new growth wilted and the roots were drying out. I yanked them up and put them bare root into my 35 gallon above ground patio pond, which was the only soaking place I had big enough to put 6 fully leafed out rose shrubs. 6 days later they got the project finished and decided they finially had time to replant those roses. They looked really bad the first two days after planting (all wilted) but fortunately look good now. My pond had to be recleaned as I had already done my spring cleaning and all that soil stuck to the roots made for lots of gooby green algae growth. But now finially, all is well.

I can sympathize with you over a vacation home. we have one too. I'm only there in the winter and I'd work out in the little yard the whole time just to find it full of weeds and neglected when i return again. i have found that planting flowering perennials hasn't worked for me. I would be weeding around them constantly, ground covers has worked but that has no or little flowering, also planting petunias zinnias have been show stoppers. and i put in a few tomato plants :) the issue with me was the weeds, i tryed mulch and spraying and weed mat, nothing worked, i can't get anything established good before i leave. i've come to the fact that i'm the only one that will take care of it for a short period of time, so I plant the area with some nice size annuals and sow in some zinnia seeds which will hold up on their own through the fall. in your case The last one there before winter should just rake the area clean and put down some good compost/manure and straw this will get rid of your tree seed/weed problem completely put it on thick (since theres no plants there) and the weeds will not start back up again. if you really want to do all perennials (remember you'll be weeding around them, how about daylilys/ iris's they will hold their own for the summer and inter plant annuals between them for summer color. I gave up on trying to have something looking beautiful all season long it's just not going to happen. i had to pick my battles and know my limits. you can also plant in some daffodils and spring bulbs for some nice early spring color. also thinking about it how about digging out that old soil and putting in some fresh composted material? that soil has to be tired and if you have been spraying it, it's got nothing to give to the plants there. you don't have to do the whole area at once, just dig in a bale of peat moss and a 5 gallon bucket of manure every time you go there and before long you'll have the whole area redone. i just don't think you'll recruit family into helping if they haven't taken interest already, and it's not worth the stress of having to think whos taking care of it while you're not there, think of it this way, its' your vision of what YOU want, it's not their vision and they don't think like you do, you'll never get anyone else to see your vision if you have to beat them up over taking care of it, they most likely see it as work and they aren't there to work they're on vacation. for us we see flower beds as enjoyment, alot of people don't see it that way. You need to come up with a garden area that will work for you not against you.

This was the thread that helped me put a name to the style of garden that I love best. I have been working towards the cottage style for many years and never get tired of the evolution of it. Loved reading them all again today. Cheryl

Rebecca, I understand about plants that do their own thing despite what we think that ought to be doing. I think every gardener has at least one type of plant that behaves bizarrely in their garden. I do think that morning glories and moonflowers just behave that way sometimes. I had trouble getting them to sprout in the soil here the first few years, though I have no idea why. Admittedly, it was awful red clay and we were in drought, so maybe the soil, even though I was amending it every year, just hadn't reached that right point yet. Now, and you just have to laugh, they reseed everywhere with wild abandon and have become a royal PITA because I want a few dozen morning glory plants to grow along the south and east garden fence of the front garden and enough sprout to cover every square inch of the garden in morning glories. They sprout irregularly too, so I am yanking out MG volunteers literally every single week of the garden season. I've never grown them in the back garden for fear they also would run amok back there, but this year some Grandpa Ott's popped up back there, perhaps planted by the birds, so now I am sure I'll be yanking out millions of them back there too. It baffles me that they were so hard to get started in the early years and now you cannot stop volunteers from sprouting and growing to save your life. And, in that same way that tells you plants have their own minds, we have had Milky Way and/or Blue Star morning glories pop up in a crack in the concrete near the garage for over a decade. They get no irrigation, no food, no care, no compost, no mulch and no relief from the hot summer sun beating down on them and the concrete---and they come back every year and grow like mad. I guarantee you if I had built a bed for them back there and tried to grow them on purpose, there probably wouldn't be a single one there. These are plants that know their own mind. Nancy, Hydrangeas do not do well at my end of the state---we are just too hot and too dry for much of the summer most years, but your soil and weather up there is very different from mine. There's a lot of plants that grow really well in eastern OK that don't grow well in other parts of the state, and I think hydrangeas are one of them. It isn't really the 95 degree days or 100 degree days that get them down here, but in those years where we have a lot of days over 105 in combination with little to no rainfall, you can just see the life leaving the hydrangeas even if you're doing your best to keep them well-watered. I started out with a lot of hostas our first year here, and the deer taught me they were deer chow, so we have none now. Daylilies do great here as long as they are within the fenced garden where the deer cannot reach them. Crinum lilies are an unstoppable force of nature down here and they don't care how hot and dry it gets. They bloom in the worst of the heat. Will they eventually wilt and die back to the ground if we are hot and dry for months on end? They will, but since their root clumps are the approximate size of a Smart Car, they surely do not die, and I've never had deer eat them either. The crinums will just sit there dormant and wait for better weather so they can green up again and regrow. I have had crinums in the same spot for over a decade and need to dig them up and divide them but don't even know if it is possible at this point---it might require the use of a backhoe or some other form of earth-moving equipment. Speaking of hungry deer and the lengths they'll go to in order to eat....a friend of ours a couple of miles north of us had to release two deer from the hog trap (these hog traps are not big enough for the deer, but try telling the deer that) the other day. I guess the bait in the hog trap was too attractive to the hungry deer, they crawled in and couldn't get out. That happened a lot in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014, but hasn't happened since. I guess the fact it is happening again shows how much the autumn/winter drought has hurt their winter food supply. Kim, lol at the cartoon. Dawn