I made a start, I'll take pics tomorrow...I had my husband chainsaw through those prickly things..3 of them are GONE!! YAHOO!! Next weekend I'll shoot for taking the three by the garage out and probably putting in either otto luyken laurel or densiforma yew if I can make sure there's enough drainage....luckly I don't have the thick red clay...this house was built on pasture that is nice light brown and very good soil...I'll add in some organic material... I replaced those thorny things with Sweet Box...it'll fill in the space and in spring have a wonderfully fragrant smell right by the front steps...in front of those I planted a few dark liriope...placed a fall display of Cinderella pumpkins and on the side where the other thorny thing was I planted a striped maiden grass that won't grow too large but will add enough contrast so as not to over whelm the corner of the foundation. Years down the road I plan to take out half the hollies and completely rescape everything..but for now-trimming what I have and sprucing it up a bit did wonders....I'm going to be adding the bulbs in a bed alongside the back of my house where there is much more sun... Thanks for your help, and I'll put some pics on there to show some improvements! Tara

I never use any soil based mix in containers and it certainly isn't recommended in such small containers. Soil-less mixes only. You'll find numerous discussions here about the problems with soil and compost in containers. Compacts and drains poorly, retains too much water for such small seedlings and causes root rot. Plus it provides no nutrients. The pale and yellowing color of them indicates both over-watering and lack of nutrients, especially nitrogen and both problems are tied to the fill in your containers. The cotyledons should still be robust and green but they clearly are not which tells you the plants are too wet and hungry. Plus you are using clear cups and roots are negative phototropic (hate light) and there is far too much soil for many of the smallest seedlings. It is sort of like putting a baby in the deep end of the big pool instead of the kiddie pool. :-) They struggle to keep from drowning. Ideally for best odds of survival they would all be transplanted out of that soil into an actual growing mix in amounts proportionate to their size and fed. It just depends on how much work you want to do and how long before they can go outside. Before next year you might want to do some reading over on the Growing from Seed forum here - a good set of FAQs there on all the basics. Dave

Thanks paintguy! I got the cutting in part done (I am a slow-bow, so I always split up the cutting and rolling). Today is a warmer day (though snowing!), so I hope to get the rolling out done today. And then enjoy some eggnog. :-) Thanks again!

Yay! I did it, and I’m really pleased with the results. :-) Doing our Ikea kitchen ourselves, has been harder than I thought it would be, but this little project was not too much trouble and the results are very satisfying. I’ll share my process in case someone else wants to try this themselves. I made a 5.5" cabinet from a 12" base cabinet. Step 1. Cut the bottom piece to size. The bottom piece is 10.5” for a 12” cabinet, since it is connected to the sides, which take up 1.5” total. So I needed to cut the bottom piece to 4” (5.5 - 1.5). A table saw is probably the best tool for this. I had read that taping the cut might help keep the cut clean so I made my measurement marks on some painters tape I put on the bottom piece. It did a decent job. Not perfect, but acceptable. Step 2. Create a way to connect the tops of the sides together to replace the metal strips. I cut two 4” pieces from a 1x6. Other sizes of wood will work, but we had leftover 1x6. The nice thing about a 1x6 is that it is 3/4“ thick like the other parts of the cabinet. Step 3. Cut down the back. The original back is 11 5/16” wide (or 11/16” less than 12”). So for my 5.5” cabinet I wanted 5.5” - 11/16” = 4 13/16”. I used a utility knife to cut the back. It took many passes, but using a straight edge I was able to get a clean cut. If you get close, but haven’t cut through the back, you can bend it and then use your knife on the back by cutting in the crease. (Similar to how you would cut drywall.) I decided to also cut out the corner square on the right side for the bracket. That left a skinny little part in the middle. This was a mistake. Unless you are doing a cabinet larger than 6” you should definitely skip this step. The brackets that hang on the rail left exactly 0" of space in between for the back, and it broke off before I even realized this. Step 4. Assemble the cabinet. Assembly the cabinet is mostly the same. The exception is that you cut off the holes on one side of the bottom for the wood dowels and cam locks. I assembled the one side that had the holes the normal way, but I used screws to connect the other side to the bottom. I predrilled the holes for the screws the depth of the screw. Then I did a shallow hole with a wider drill bit, so I could counter-sink the screws and they would not stick out. The final step is to connect the wooden pieces that replace the metal strips. I screwed those in using the same process that I screwed the bottom to the side. And now I have a 5.5” cabinet. Total cost: $34. This does not include a door. If the cabinet was 5” you could use a 30” wide low drawer front. I will be using part of a cover panel to create a door. I have to wait until we get to the using the panels to try that part. I’ll try to report back how that goes.