I can't believe all of the responses, thank you so much! I'm saving all of them and am going to go through the suggested plants to choose some for the space. The area in question is rather dry, although this spring/summer has been on the dry side so far, so many of our garden beds are dryer than usual. I think this spot tends to get less watering from us because the one spigot in the front of our house hasn't worked since we moved here and it's a pain to drag the backyard hose all the way around to the front. DH has promised to get down in the crawl space and fix the darned thing before next spring, so hopefully with a well-placed soaker hose under a layer of mulch it will be more moist next year. In the event that the area does remain rather dry, are there any shade-loving perennials that will flourish in dry shade? The idea of having a tree there is intriguing, but I do think that the area is a bit small---one of my husband's pet peeves is trees that are planted too close to houses. The window there is pretty much our one and only 'view' from anywhere inside the house, so we'd like to keep it unobstructed. We also have so many trees in our yard (especially in that half of the yard), I think the idea of adding more makes us start to panic a little ; ) This is a horrid photo (I think it's from the realtor) but you can see the three huge trees on the right (one is a double-trunk); there is also an enormous maple directly behind the garage. http://pattycakedesigns.com/house6.jpg I'm not positive, but I don't think that the garden stays warm in the winter. We planted three hydrangea there last fall, and none of them made it through the winter. Maybe the freezing wind blowing in from the west hits full-on whatever's planted there? We live a block from the shore of Lake Erie, so it does tend to get pretty cold/windy here in the winter. I do like the idea of a birdbath or some other small structure there (I think our four cats would enjoy drooling from the windowsill), and I think we have one in the shed that we aren't using now. I saw one the other day that had been planted with annuals that were positively dripping over the edges of the bowl; I seem to remember DH moaning about having to scrub out the birdbath more than he liked, maybe if we don't use it for a birdbath per se we can use it as a focal point for some fancy annuals? Other than impatiens, what annuals grow well in the shade? Begonias? I've been trying to come up with some more ideas for plants that might look interesting through the winter (since it's winter here for about six months, or at least seems that way, especially when it snows in April). Any thoughts for anything other than holly? We're not big evergreen/dwarf conifer fans. We love climbing hydrangea (left one behind at the old house, I still mourn losing it); if I wanted to start one up the siding there to the left, what would be the best way to support it? I'm guessing the siding is too slick for it to hold itself up. A trellis? If so, how do you attach a trellis to the siding, or would you just anchor the bottom in the ground? My goal now is to try and get the unwanted flowers moved to the backyard somewhere so that I can hopefully plant some shade perennials here in the fall. I moved the Clara Curtis this morning (from the way it spread in just one year, I have a feeling it's going to take over whereever I put it) and am going to move those sickly-looking geraniums when we hack them back in a few days. I need to get that poor hydrangea out of the corner; would it be better to wait until fall to move it, or could I do it now? Thanks again for everyone's responses, this is all fascinating and so helpful! Amy Here is a link that might be useful:

When we lived in short-season New Hampshire we had one huge pile that got anything and everything organic, from huge volumes of leaves to twigs to garbage to clothes to whole corn stalks to rotten pears to whole walnuts to my sister's many poor gerbils. Come Spring, once the ground had thawed and dried and we were getting ready to turn under last Fall's cow manure, we'd take one pile and fork it over onto the other spot, starting a new pile. What didn't fork was compost, or close enough. That went right onto the garden. No picky metering it out or piling it up, it just got spread and used, and we then had a (new) pile that didn't get touched (except for the piling-on and for fishing worms) for a full 'nother year. No turning. No worrying about ridiculous green-brown ratios or weed seeds. No thermometers. Just a totally simple, low work, and effective pile. Everything eventually rotted down. We just spread it around and got on with the gardening. In a way there are no bare spots underground, and roots will grow, inter-mesh, and find the nutrition the plants need. What I'm trying to illustrate is there's no need to store anything. Holding it back until you're ready to plant something in a particular spot does nothing for you other than make extra work or cost extra money. All it is (ALL) is adding back organic material you're removing by growing food and grubs. No magic. Use it now, use it all, and there will be more next year.

It probably means you weren't looking closely enough when you saved them and didn't notice what drive you were in. If you want them in only one place, move them from the drive where you don't want them to the one you do. Then, in the future, look closely at what drive and directory you are in when you want to save more. And, in any case, I hope you are backing them up to a second location so that you don''t lose them when your hard drive fails....

I like to drive out Fitzhugh/ Pedernales Falls Rd./ Robinson Rd rd to Johnson City. There are some smaller off shoots off of it that are nice too, and then one can turn north on 281 and take a right, coming back on the Cypress Mill rd (301). that joins up with Farm rd. 962 with becomes Hamilton Pool rd. Which will end on 71 in Bee Caves. I take this slowly, stopping at the low water crossings