Hi Rita, My spring cucumber harvest was incredible. We planted Marketmore cukes. This fall has been very tough on the cukes. I have had a Seminole pumpkin growing since last spring, one vine is 72 ft and growing. The SVB were the hardest to over come. Try spraying with BT once every 7 - 10 days for the caterpillars. There is also some good info on the web on how to cut the SVB out of the vine without killing the vine. I also used Neem oil, this was only as needed for disease and if the powdery mildew gets bad spray with a copper like Kocide. BT & Neem are organic and I think the Kocide is also. I found a book at the library, Rodale's "Find it fast answers for vegetable gardens" Lots of good info on how to grow & defeat the pests. I have some pickling cukes on the trellis but its been a fight with all the pests. I still hope to can some up... Good luck and don't give up. Here is a link that might be useful: Rodale Find it fast answers to Vegetable Gardening

No weeds I keep the beds weed free. I am already on a raised bed and sloped but I am putting the new bed on a really steep slope and I am going to till in alot of sand. When I put those beds in I used a garden blend topsoil so maybe its just to rich for iris. Its just so frustrating because for many years at the old house my iris bloomed year after year and were carefree. Up here I have bent over backwards to get them to thrive and they do right up to blooming time then rot sets in. I am beginning to wonder if part of it is the iris them selves. I have been spending hundreds of dollars a year on new releases and they just don,t seem as hardy. But then again when it rains almost every single day right up to and threw bloom season for several years in a row thats something I cann,t control. I just been bitten by the iris bug big time and its driving me crazy that I am having so much trouble growing them. It has to stop raining sometime doesen,t it?

a. the tall skinnny evergreen might be sky pencil holly b. salvia greggii & knockouts (already mentioned) are perfect, i think, for those areas - both are relatively zero-maintenance - you'd only have to "climb up there" once a year c. i agree with the comment that the stonework/concrete will increase the ambient heat - native & drought-tolerant is the way to go if you want low-maintenance d. i've got some purple heart, if you want some - they do spread, but not in an invasive way - they're native to mexico & can handle the heat e. there's someone on our forum who describes their style as "native texas cottage" or something similar - who is that? not exactly an english garden counterpart, but similar - is it the orderly, geometric, trimmed "english garden" that you like, or the overflowing, miss marple "english garden" that you prefer? - that would help us make texas-friendly suggestions f. your structure would look wonderful with a local native flowering vine - have you already told us what part of texas? - that would also go a long way in lowering the ambient temp

ah, I can relate to the angst, and I feel for you. Have some chocolate with that wine! I don't think anybody can really tell you what to do, but I'll just say that I'm glad that we did go forward with our remodel even though at the time it didn't seem like a good idea for lots of reasons. We probably struggled more than we would have if we had waited a year to start, but I'm still convinced we did the right thing by moving forward because, truthfully, you never know what is down the road. You could decide to wait only to find yourself in a different set of circumstances. As for the KD, is it possible to use the KD you are comfortable with to design the kitchen, for a fee, knowing you will be using the plans to purchase cabinets elsewhere? We did that with our first kitchen cabinet guy - paid him $150 for his plan even though we didn't buy his cabinets. (and only used a few of his ideas in the end anyway). That might be an option. Oh, and the floor angst - yes, I know that all too well! Keep looking - the perfect tile is out there. you just haven't found it yet. You will! Living without a kitchen isn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. Get yourself nicely situated wherever you are closest to a good water source. Since it's mostly just you, you can pretty much eat anywhere. We always ate, and still do, in the family room in front of the TV, or more often than not I was eating at my desk (and have the crumbs in the keyboard to prove it) We also thought we'd remodel over the summer and use the grill, but we didn't rip out till the end of October and didn't even use the grill anyway because I really wanted to keep it simple as far as prepping foods and cleaning up, and found a whole array of microwave foods that I never knew existed! I set up a folding table in a spare bedroom and set up the microwave and food supply and a few dishes. Across the hall in the bathroom where we have a large vanity with two sinks we set up the coffee maker and a small plastic drainboard thing. A lot of people like an electric skillet or hot plate, but I wouldn't have been able to wash too much in the bathroom sink, so I really kept it quite simple. If I had to do it again, I would have gotten a small fridge to keep in the bedroom because it was a pain to run to the garage for coffee creamer, salad, etc. Anyway, we lived like that for a few months, and it really wasn't that bad at all. I think you can do this! And when you have freak-out moments, which even in the best of situations you will have, you will find a lot of support right here :)