I have zero help on what to plant but you need to finish getting rid of the Bermuda Grass first. Its an ugly process. Weeds that grow from seeds are way down the priority list compared to the problem below the surface. Don't disturb the soil because you don't want to break off the Bermuda Grass and leave pieces that are very deep and will not come back for many months. You need to water deeply and wait for the Bermuda to come back up. You can gently pull on them and see if they are shallow. Don't break them off. Mostly that is a waste of time. Hit the new growths with Round Up. Repeat until there aren't any new growths of Bermuda Grass. You will probably need to repeat this 4-5 times so you are looking at a 3 month process. If you try to do this in a month you will have lots of remaining Bermuda that will sprout. You will need to be vigilant and Round Up every new growth. If you have established plants at that time, the best way is to dab Round Up Concentrate directly on the sprout. The plants system will circulate it through the plant. An alternative process on such a small area is to completly sift the top 8" of dirt to remove all the Bermuda Grass rhizomes. I understand that the best way to do this on the other side is to mow the Bermuda short and then use lots of Round Up on it. That gets down into the rhizomes and then very little will come back. I'm not a huge fan of Round Up, or any chemicals for that matter, but this is an ideal use of Round Up. Edited to add: I forgot to mention that the rhizomes from the remaining side can spread under the walkway and recontaminate your hard work. This post was edited by GregBradley on Sat, Apr 19, 14 at 13:05

Very nice, Mike! Hopefully it will fix itself to the rocks and make for a great covering. Josh

Thank you. I hope it all goes smoothly. I ended up with the very first kitchen store that I went to. I wasn't crazy about the guy that came out the first time to measure. But this second time I ended up having one of the co-owners work with me and everything just fell into place. I think because I had so much more knowledge than when I started. But I also realized I needed to increase my budget to get everything I needed done. Everyone else just tried to work around my budget and left out ceiling work (hideous flourescent light removal) and all lighting and sink and faucet. But the best part was finding the cabinet color that I wanted so quickly this time around. I just couldn't settle on the color with the previous kitchen place.

In the FWIW department, a couple of years ago, I raised more than 60 seedlings from hips I rescued from a public garden (and a few other roses), and they stayed outside the whole time during a polar vortex winter (planted out after Thanksgiving 2014 with seedlings starting to show up in Jan/Feb 2015). I used my regular potting mix (compost, peat moss, plant-tone and sand), but I used extra sand (just regular all-purpose sand from Lowe's, not builder's sand, which is best for rooting cuttings). The sand promotes drainage, so no issues with damping off. No heat mats, no peroxide, no fungicides. By mid-February I had about 40 seedlings, but others showed up later on. My husband built what we call the squirrel cage (keeps the varmints out, not in) from hardware cloth and piping, and the seedlings stayed protected until they started to outgrow their shared pots and needed their own pots. I think the cage was covered with a tarp when we had freezes, but they didn't go inside or even onto the back porch. Once they achieved some size they were moved to a sheltered place on the ground under a large oak. Dappled shade evidently was sufficient light. More than 60 seedlings was too many, so I let most die through a tough love/attrition process, so theoretically, the surviving 15-20 roses are the toughest of the tough. Most have Noisette parents, but a few are clearly more modern. Here's my post from the propagation forum with a few photos of early blooms... Virginia