You are not there yet. You are so far from being there that you did not ask a single question. I would suggest that you do something to get closer to "there" which will then give you specific dilemas and/or choices that you might need advice on for making. As Glenda the Good Witch said to Dorothy, "it is best to start at the beginning and then just follow the yellow brick road". Work from general toward specific. An example would be that you want a patio, then where it should be relative to other activities that exist or you want to exist (like near a door to the kitchen), then how big you want it vs. how much room you have,.... Choosing material is a resulting point not a starting point. It will be a matter of whether you are going to be wearing shoes or barefoot (around a pool? you don't want to pick up loose joint material on wet feet and have it in the pool, you don't want exposed edges that can hurt feet, you don't want something too hot to walk on), it will be cost driven to one degree or another, availability of materials, and finally the capability of your contractor (you in this case I suspect). OZ is a long way away and there are witches, lions, and tigers, and bears, and lets not rule out flying monkies. Surround yourself with good people and ask the right questions, and above all, make the commitment and all will be well. Commitment is often in the form of hiring qualified people. It often requires spending some money. Sometimes it can be done through hard work and determination. It never comes too easy or it is not much of a commitment.

Hi Tracie, I am interested in: Mayan Gold Rosie Meyer Rosella Sheridan Little Orange Tex Kindly Light Endless Sky (1 fan) Chorus Line Nosferatu/ Jungle Fever: These two are very similar, grew together, but is one of these two Peggy Jeffcoat (1 fan) Please email me if you'd like to do a big trade and I'll send you a list of what all I have that is ready. Joyceann

I would love to hear an update from the Euphorbia growers about how their plantings are now in fall 2011. I'm new to Euphorbias just starting to grow them the past 2 years & love that the deer don't touch them! When first planting they are straggly looking & nothing to cheer about especially when they pout. Someone who gave me one said they are hysteronic meaning they overexaggerate after transplanting. Gotta laugh about that one! They do look like they've died, but they perk up in a few weeks. Last year our low was 13 degrees & these are what we have now in the ground. -Euphorbia 'Blue Haze' established & looks great still. I only prune after flowering in August taking out the flowering stems to the base. -Mrs. Robb's spurge - transplanted in fall looks better than the starts I planted in spring. Many new stems have grown up from both plantings & I cut off the old ones in September to the base. -purple wood spurge - spring planting last year, so settling in & less vigorous than the plain green. -'Rudolph' taller w/ red stems - would prefer the stems not lean, but received that way in the pot & still curved. Hoping the new stems in spring won't curve like that. Just planted up 2+ cu. ft container at camp under covered patio that included fall colorful 'Fern Cottage' E. griffithi as the anchor & 'Bonfire' reddish cushion spurge amidst other plants. Variegated sage, rainbow chard, variegated vinca minor, 'Wojo's Gem' vinca major, candytuft, a few bellflowers (serbian & peach leaf) & 'White Nancy' Lamium. I sure hope the Euphorbias don't pout too much in their new home.

There's too many azaleas only if you want one or two plants of each kind in the entire planting. Otherwise, since the azaleas are small-leaved if anything the planting could stand to use more of them, to balance the leaf sizes of the nandinas and in particular the palm. (Also I would stop clipping them so they stand apart from one anther like tombstones, would instead allow them to merge and form a drift). Windmill palm, heavenly bamboo and evergreen azalea all want more moisture than manzanita. And look the part. So if you stick a manzanita among these others there will be a conflict of naturalistic character. 'Howard McMinn' is good looking and has made some nice specimens visible from Seattle streets. And elsewhere, including at the Rhododendron Species Botanical Garden in Federal Way. However it also has a tendency to develop leaf galls here, and for whatever reason the still recently good looking example at the Rhododendron Garden had suddenly gone south the last time I looked, been basically lost - perhaps to crowding and shading. If you start planting types like manzanitas you are dealing with dry-land species that have little tolerance for shade and dampness or heaviness of the soil, at least in the case of the last two them occurring in combination with one another. Think coastal California and Mexico, the Mediterranean etc. Whereas what you have planted in that driveway bed now is E Asian monsoon climate species, from places where it rains buckets all summer most years. If you now want to focus on dry climate plants instead I would take out the palm etc. and probably replace the soil in the bed with a coarse one prone to excessive drainage. One time I bought pit run sand and dumped it on top of the existing soil in front of my house, made berms which supported an assortment of plants that all did well (although few of them were actual dry-land kinds, I am sure it would have worked for those. And I wouldn't have felt the need to water them in summer). Also at the Jungle Fever Exotics nursery in Tacoma there is a berm between the sidewalk and the sales yard planted with things not usually expected to grow here, consisting visibly of some kind of freely draining or otherwise "different" soil that is making it possible for these plants to persist. Bing Images - Jungle Fever Exotics Nursery http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=jungle+fever+exotics+nursery&qpvt=jungle+fever+exotics+nursery&qpvt=jungle+fever+exotics+nursery&qpvt=jungle+fever+exotics+nursery&FORM=IGRE