Thanks, I appreciate the links! I am familiar with the area (grew up there) but prices are all over the place. Sparsely populated area, economically depressed. Watched a farm auction last year, 400 AC split up into large and small parcels. Of course better crop fields grab a better premium. But there are some that were smaller sold as building sites. Crazy thing (that doesn't make sense to me) is that the smaller the site, the higher the price. Minimal road frontage on both, well & septic necessary on both. The 9 AC parcel going for $2600/AC, double size 18 AC parcel with nearly identical layout (woods and cleared field) going for $2100AC. But only on the market 6 months and slashed 15k already, probably due to the economy and no draw for newcomers. I check tax records as well, for deed changes in the area.

Ok, I'm not sure I am reading your diagrams correctly so bear with me if I'm way off base. But it appears to me you are wasting a lot of space with so many paths, and overly narrow paths at that, just to have so many different beds. So my first question would be why so many beds? More beds is not necessarily more productive or more useful than fewer but bigger beds would be. Is the E-W directional placement of the beds what is limiting you? If so, then that isn't any sort of absolute "law". Lots of gardeners use N-S beds quite successfully and they can be easy to compensate for the direction by arranging plantings and crop rotation. And it would appear that in your case using a N-S orientation would allow for a much more effective use of space. 3' or 4' wide beds that could be 12, 14, or even 18 feet long. For example using Version 7 diagram, one 3x14 foot long bed could abutt up to the patio edge on one side and you'd have a 3' path between it and the green tree band on the east. Follow m? 1' wide paths are basically useless for any practical purposes and 2' paths aren't much better. You'll live to regret those narrow spaces. So on the south side, if you feel you MUST run E-w then combine some of those many tiny beds into fewer larger ones OR make 2 N-S beds that are 4'x-24' long with 3 foot wide paths all around. Much less wasted space, more growing space, essentially the same amount of fill required, and I would argue more attractive than having a bunch of tiny little beds crammed together. Make sense? Dave

In the past when RPS updated their website (it is now nicer but much slower to browse) my account was deleted with all my past orders. They did not move any past orders or any customer accounts to their new site. The seeds that take about 2 months to arrive since they wait a month to charge a card and then another month to deliver arrive continuously partly or mostly not viable, shattered or they germinate in very low percentage such as 3% or none. I did have some very limited success with RPS seeds in the past, but a lot of misidentifying is going on, even now I realized the couple of palms that germinated from the batch are different species than I purchased. Take your chances. If you have no other source for specific seeds, take a chance and good luck. I am now ordering seeds, germinated seedlings and palms directly from suppliers even that I am just a collector and even if it is harder to achieve that.

Is there any website of garden designers where designs are submitted and commented on by other designers? I checked all of the garden design forums (dozens of them) on Facebook and they were of poor quality. The one forum I found for professionals was largely about hardscape install, not design. I would rather find a generic design forum with good designers who have an eye for shape, and texture, and color, than a landscape or garden-specific forum where there is no sensitivity to those issues.