gazania, I have help from DH in the garden too and you can only do what you can do within time restraints. I never expect a picture perfect yard either and enjoy whatever we are able to accomplish. This year, IâÂÂve also been looking at what I can change to reduce the amount of work as it is only going to get harder to keep up with. I love the seasonal changes too. Even going out in the winter, just walking out the door into the crisp air or the smell when snow is on itâÂÂs way. ItâÂÂs great! SBorders, what interesting things to do that don't require labor? :-) CMK, cyclmen bloom this time of year, I guess. It's on my list to look into a little more. Photo? Under the Maple....well, so far what seems to be working, are Solomon's Seal, European Ginger, Epimedium, Hosta, and I finally have a Rhododendron that seems to be hanging in there. It's grown a little and I hope I can encourage it to grow a little more. I'm moving some Arctostaphylus to an area right outside the dripline where it will get a little more sun. It's still not looking very good but I'm encouraged. I am going to divide more epimedium and Hosta and add those fall/spring. I did add a running epimedium last year, but so far it's just sitting there. I was wondering if that Blue Oat Grass would manage right outside the dripline too and I'm thinking of using that Golden Hakone grass. That area is not that visible to where we use the yard the most, so it's last on the priority list, but I'm ready to pay a little more attention this fall. I'm also thinking of adding Leucojum.

Hi Mia, I dug up lots of stuff and brought it with me when we moved here from Texas. We moved in February of what was a fairly warm and droughty winter. I waited until I had the soil here prepared for the plants, then dug up the plants, put them in pots or buckets or whatever I had, brought them up here and replanted them the same day. I watered them in well. Everything survived the move just fine, although some of those plants were devoured by the deer within a few months. (Live and learn. That was my introduction to the plants deer love to eat!) You can do it whichever way you want. If you choose to dig up the plants now and hold them in pots over the winter, make sure they stay warm enough that the roots don't freeze if we have a spell of especially bitter cold weather like we did last year. The general rule of thumb for plants growing in containers is that they are considered to be growing in conditions one zone colder than plants in the ground in the same location. So, for example, if you are in zone 7 and put zone 7 plants in containers, they then are growing in zone 6 conditions since they are losing the insulation of being grown in the ground. Most of the plants you mentioned should be able to handle weather exposure being one zone colder, but maybe not the lantana. One way around the coldness issue is to pot up the plants and then sink them back down into the ground, so the ground can keep them warmer than they'd be in the pots. Or, if you have a sheltered spot up against the side of a building where you can line up the pots and let the building block, for example, the north winds, then you can heap up hay, straw, bark mulch or chopped/shredded autumn leaves around the pots to insulate the soil inside the pots and keep it warmer. If you were going to have a wicked cold spell with zone 5 winter temperatures for a couple of days, you could heap more of those mulch materials on top of the pots, or throw heavy blankets or something over the top of them. I don't think you'll have to worry a lot about typical winter temps, but will have to watch out if extraordinarily cold weather is forecast. I've never moved asparagus so do not know if the three year clock resets, but I don't necessarily think it would. Most companies sell one-year old roots, but occasionally I've seen two-year-old or three-year-old roots being sold and I don't think they'd sell the older, larger (and more expensive) roots if the clock was going to reset when the roots were planted. If you keep the potted plants inside the garage or shed, be sure you remember to give them just a little moisture now and then so the roots and soil do not get too dry. Dry roots suffer freeze damage more easily than moist ones. If it were me, I think I'd likely dig them now, pot them up and sink the pots right back down into the ground. Or, I'd wait until spring. Dawn

Hi ladies :) Thanks for your comments. I posted those pictures to two lenses of mine and thought about posting more as time goes by as I think I'll produce more Halloween lenses in the near future (if I have some time to). Actually, Squidoo is a kind of micro-blogging platform - or micro-site - and community that allows members to create a webpage on a subject and that shares their revenues with their members. But very few of them present their own creations or personal creations and as a member of this wonderful forum I thought I would do good by adding pictures of your splendid creations instead of adding professional and artificial ones I would have find in magazines. Below is the link to the first lens I used the pictures and somewhere into this lens is another link to the other lens (called "Halloween Homemade: Scary Decoration Ideas"). I used the pictures included into Purplemoon's inspiration album in order to not pick up pictures of the forum as I was unsure I was allowed to do it. After each picture, I added your names and a link to the forum or Purplemoon's album. I took the weekend off as, like you said, I'm getting tired and spent a few minutes here and from here in some of your blogs, it was relaxing... Ok, so now, have to work on my tomorrow's English course presentation (relating to Virtual Assistant). But I'll keep an eye on the forum! Here is a link that might be useful: Ideas for a Successful Hallowen Party

what I can't do is carry colour in my head. @blfenton, no one can. It's how we're wired. Doesn't matter how good color acuity may be, the brain will create a short-hand version of the color you saw and that is what you will remember. This takes the original topic referenced, the gray/greige thread, a level deeper. The brain creates the short-hand version for color memory because our language for color is limited. Thus the reason for 11 basic color names. (the 1969 Berlin-Kaye Study) Thus the reason why color words like greige, taupe, beige, tan, khaki are not at all useful. Thus the reason why Albert Munsell was so hell-bent on creating a color system that described color by the three psychological dimensions, hue/value/chroma. More if interested: Albert Munsell introduced the color notation because he wanted the study of color to be as organized and clear-cut as the study of music. He was fascinated by the written musical note; one could read musical notes and "hear" the music play in their head without any audible notes being played. He believed the same could be achieved with color. And he was right. His discovery of the three psychophysical dimensions of color, hue, value and chroma provided the framework to "see" color without a physical color swatch the same way one can read musical notes and "hear" music.