I had a similar garden party last year, a big family reunion, so I can sympathize with your anxiety. Here's how I handled it. To do now: - Deadhead like crazy, so you've got fresh growth and blooms in August. - If you've got a problem area where you've always been meaning to add another shrub or two, go ahead and put those shrubs in. - Take a critical look at your lawn, and lay down fresh sod in bare spots. Don't bother with grass seed... your timeline calls for sod. - Examine your garden walkways. Do they need to be widened or extended or leveled so people don't trip and fall? Do that kind of work now, so it has time to settle in. Repair gates so they open easily. To do throughout the summer: - Keep the garden REALLY well watered. - Don't bother weeding. You'll exhaust yourself if you try to keep up with it, and you need to spend some time getting the inside of your house ready. The perennials will do fine, even if they're surrounded by weeds. To do in August: - Two weeks before the event, thoroughly weed out the entire garden, re-edge all of the beds with a garden spade, and put down fresh mulch. - Three days before the event, mow the grass. If you mow it any closer to the day of the event than that, people will have fresh grass clippings sticking to their shoes. And remember to have FUN on the big day, basking in the compliments you're sure to receive!

Thank you so much for responding. I could be wrong because I have no idea how any of this works but my thought was that the steam from the bathroom was making the laminate come up. Since that is the only area I am having a problem with. And yes you are right all of the laminate is locked together so I can't simply remove that peice and replace it.

One of the most precious gifts I received from a very good friend was a Memory Jar. She got a beautiful jar from Hallmark that says you made a difference in my life along with other sayings. She then wrote memories about things we shared on slips of paper rolled them up and tied them with a bow. She has since passed away and I still like pulling a slip out whenever I miss her. Sometimes I laugh other times get a little weapy. Like the time I had super long hair and we saw in a magazine if you pulled it to the top of your head and cut it straight it would layer it. Yes, I was stupid enough to let her try it. She had to watch all our kids while I went to a beauty shop. Anyway I hope this helps.

The great majority of tulips, not just species or Darwins, but very many garden hybrids will return reliably with certain caveats. Most essentially, like bearded iris, these bulbs need to be dry over summer, with preferably NO mulch but bare soil - despite growing at depth, the bulbs need to be baked all summer. They also hate, hate, hate wet winter soil. Essentially, if you can grow them on a sunny scree bed with no competition and well drained soil_ fertility is less an issue if sufficient sunlight falls on the leaves - most tulips will return. They often don't return in pots because they split off into daughter bulbs too readily, and they don't return in the ground if they do not get a full sun and very well drained environment. Mine are in a stony soil and are dressed with gravel, maintaining a lot of summer radiation. Having said that, not all tulips are equal. The least reliable have been the very large flowered Triumph types (but not the Fosteriana) and some of the late singles seem to be less reliable than early singles. parrots, viridiflora are so-so while lily-flowered have been very reliable for me. Best of all, even in pots, are species such as batalinii, clusiana, humilis and, my top favourite although rare, the late sprengeri (easier to grow from seed than to source expensive bulbs). True, my garden is a zone 8 sandy and stony open allotment in the UK but many clumps are over 15 years old - the ones I have lost have tended to be either overshadowed or thugged out by weeds and grass.I have never fertilised them, although I do top-dress the veggie beds (I grow a lot of tulips on the ends) with a compost topping (but not very rich in nutrients) but again, I do ensure the leaves are allowed to fully die back before removing or allowing other perennials to overshadow them. Perhaps less surprising, most of the older cultivars, which were bred from 'cottage' tulips - tend to have shorter stems, smaller flowers - are more reliable than some of the very large and blowsy doubles or modern varieties. They never come back when underplanting shrubs, or (unlike narcissi) in grass.