Sometimes I like to dig furrows in a shady location. Long trenches about a shovels depth. Heeling all the plants into the trench and slightly covering them with soil. If for any reason an emergency comes up I have taken the responsibility of creating a nursery to baby-sit my root stock and help the excess foliage wanting to wilt. Do this to warm up youre muscles when calm and the morning hours are still cool. You'll thank yourself if the weather turns hot and plants that you couldnÂt get divided and transplanted for another day or two were left to bake. Summer is here. In this way you can set the pace of work. DonÂt let the garden dictate when you are needing to rest the body. By preparing this way you can retire early and prepare dinner or tend to aching muscles. Gardening can be enjoyable with the heeling of plants while renovating large beds. If you need to quit in the middle of the project for a few days time you add more soil literally planting the heeled plants. Water them heavily. Just be neat when trenching. Clean work is rewarding when in a rush at the end of a long day. Keep all the soil piled neatly along one side of the trench. So it can be pulled back easily atop the plants. At least this will give you time if preparing new beds means cultivating unexpected hard soil. Sounds odd but I sometimes keep a kiddy pool full of water. So I can wash out the soils of tuberous roots and divide them rapidly. Once again if IÂm leaving for an emergency plants like Triadescantia Spiderwort (IÂve never spelled that one corrctly)Â.you get the idea. Some plants can sit in water for a week. Happy and able to keep thier foliage strong. When IÂm working with woodland types such as Trilliums, Gaultheria, Troutlillies, Bloodroot, Solomons Seal, Jack in the Pulpit, Ferns, etc I have a low dividing and or transplanting death rate using the pool with enough cool water out of sunlight . Some of the old gardens IÂve worked in have these woodland perennials as part of the gardens content and they are the aristocrats of pampering.I work with them like a florist cuts stems underwater. Some needing a bucket full of soil from underneath a particular tree like a hemlock grove to be reworked into the new beds soil. Any way youre perennials are easier. The key in my opinion if you are designing on the whim is preparing trenches to heel youre stock in case of mental block or physical exhaustion. Make sure they are well watered for the week in advance if no rain is in sight. With very large rootstock perrenials I'll leave the hose overnight on a slow drip like run to soak the plant like a true rain would. That is for the ones I really like. Such as when Transplanting Japanese maples I use this method of slow soaking. That helps. I like to cut squares of burlap of different sizes. Many in fact. So I can place a perrenials rootball atop the square and lift the plant easily. Keeps the lawn clean also carrying around plants. Summer plantings can require unsightly wells for each grouping or individual plant. This will be invaluable come summer drought and heat. More so in Virginia. I keep a pole or thin crowbar and poke a few holes around the well as I water. Sticking the hose into the hole and soaking the soil from bottom up. Cinching the hose to limit the flow of water so as not to rush water out of the hole poked by the bar. Its slow but the air pockets get saturated with water. I never liked pounding the surface with water knowing the bottom of the plant might still be dry. This is great for kids to try. They love mudpies. And its a good way to reming plants need care and water. On another note: I spent my summers in Virginia with my mothers parents. My grandmother was a gardener and painter. She had to deal with those hot summer days and nights with that orange clay soil that would bake like a potters kiln. A big change from the North East garden she tended. Near Roanoke, Town of Huddleston across from Lynchburg. Smith Mountain Lake. Appalachian Power Company Dam Project. Virginia makes my heart ache. I miss her. Appalachian trial. Chatanooga River and North- South Carolina into Georgia. What a magical place. And the round bails of straw! Used to hide in those when the farmer would come chasing me and a friend occasionally shootin Rock salt from a shot gun. WeÂd be taking all his catfish from the cattle pond. To make up for his large sized stock weÂd put little ones from the lake into the pond. Mr. Wilkerson.Âs pond. Surrounded by hundreds of acres of Tobacco, Corn and straw fields. I donÂt know who the guy that was shooting was. Never really got a good look since it was always in the night. I still think it was the guy adjacent to the farm or down the road.. IÂd see him fishing the same pond during the morning daylight. I could recognize that hunched over back form from the night silhouette. We were a crazy pair of kids about fourteen years old.. Picking Tobacco worms off the plants all day., Placing Tobacco into the slated wood inside the barn to cure for pocket money. That stuff burnt a whole in my cheeks chewing it half dried. WeÂd pocket a bunch of leaves for the nights fishing. The closest store was an hours drive more or less. To far to walk. Pass time spitting.Cicadas and lightning bugs. I swore I caught more catfish spitting tobacco juice onto my chicken liver and bread. Sometimes the mosquitoes were so bad we would leave the poles and bury ourselves into the round straw bails.Falling asleep not realizing a light rain passed through. Untill a lightning crashed our sleep. Lightning seems to have a livlier personality while cruising across Virginia Farmland. Like its waiting to get you. After a while we kept one bail as our secret stash of fishing gear. Kept the cooler inside to. We were typical mischevious adventerous boys. But my friend was another local farmers son so at leat my Yankee butt had some protection. And he made sure I learned the local slang over those years so as to fit in. It sucked to come back to N.Y. where the kids never understood the finer parts of growing up. The better half of the English language. Southern accents made me feel like I'd live a longer life. That laid back tommarows a new day attitude. My N.Y. friends all went to summer camps. While I was living a summer like a by gone era. We even used Mr Wilkersons Outhouse. He had no plumbing and was a millionaire. He liked me. And for A while I hated Yanks just keep him from finding out I was a yank. Everyone including adults were afraid of him. He disliked the D.C. folk and New Yorkers buying up his lakefront land. His lots a few years later were fetching two hundred thousand dollars each. . Around 1992. He was smart and wealthy.But I wish to this day he could have kept his land. I saw the pain in his eyes to see the others moving onto his familly land. Guess me being a kid he adopted me as a local kid.I had the tanned skin and orange stained shoes to look like the rest. Along with the fresh cured tobacco hanging out of pockets. Never asking where I was from. Making me feel at home.Sitting on his front porch the local newcomers who bought his land were in disbelief to see me with him. They never spoke to him after the sale of land. But went rushing over to my Grandparents to rat me out. They didnt like most of the locals. But acted like fakes when face to face. Saying hello and being all proper. Funny how adults acted looking back at those summer months gone by. Mr. Wilkerson wanted nothing to do with those rude obnoxious people. And in that sense I felt the animosity still pent up from the civil war. He was honest. He let me know that the South still is proud and alive. A way of life. I felt what books couldnt ever teach. I was an impressionable youth. But my Grandparents were New yorkers retired on his land so I was fearfull to talk. I always just sat quietly. Looking out into the fields. Letting Mr. Wilkerson talk on the rare occasion. And I now feel like the luckiest kid from New York to meet Old Mr. Wilkerson who was a southern gentleman. I understood then how silence means being respectfull of the other persons viewpoint. I was silent out of fear. But I learned a southern viewpoint on Northerners buying up the soil his family and generations before had tilled. That must be like adding salt to old wounds. I miss the South. Hope my grandparents donÂt read this. My summers in Virginia were quite peaceful months to their recollection. Sorry for the lengthy post. Gardening is giving so many flashbacks of past experiences I want to let them loose. Ricky.

Thank you, my3dogs! My daughter is living in a semi-furnished apartment this year (it came with sofa, chair, coffee table, but no accessories or decor). Last summer, I made a lot of pillows, window treatments and several other projects for this apartment. I've included the link below. Next year, she will be living in an unfurnished apartment, so I'm trying to find bargains to coordinate with what she already has. The plaid CL sofa won't work for her with the check, since I want to use the things she already has. My plan was to slipcover the sofa with painter's drop cloths, however, I may take the plunge into upholstery. She won't need the sofa until August, so I could start with a smaller project to build up my experience and courage! Being a fellow cheapskate... I am an accountant by day, and one of my clients is a fairly high-end interior design store. One of the perks of doing their books is that I get dibs on discontinued samples. All of the fabric that I used for pillows for my daughter's apt was free - either samples or leftovers from their client projects. They use a lot of their samples themselves (have their workroom create pillows for their store) so I don't get many samples, but they have helped me with fabric / trim for my daughter's projects as well as my own home. They are way out of my price range for their custom things, but they do give me free advice and opinions on my projects! Here is a link that might be useful: Daughter's Apartment This post was edited by Sugar-Plum on Tue, Jan 22, 13 at 21:31

lazygardens, I think I was writing up my reply and didn't see your post earlier. I don't know the brand, but this is it, on sale now for $3.99 a yard at Barn Fabrics through 5/27. I got this email just today. Well, GW will NOT let me add a link to it right now, but look for MS-1058 when you to the Barn site. - 'To all our web customers: Happy Memorial Day Now until Memorial Day all the following fabrics will be offered at $3.99 per yard. *Upholstery (U), *Drapery (D only, not DM), *Microsuede (MS) and *Outdoor (O only, not ORT) on our website, www.barnfabriccenter.com, . Please add 'Memorial Day Sale' to the Special Instructions/Comment Section at check out to receive the discount. Discounts will not be applied without this code.' The back of this chair was done in their MS-1057, Palance Pueblo. This one is heavier than the one on the seat of the Spanish chair. BEFORE - Bee, I have seen 'religious chairs' here on my CL looking very similar. I recall one being called a 'church chair'. It's very nice, but I prefer ones that need more fabric! I wouldn't pay that for it, either. I know the stools could be great done in the same fabric and finish but I want so badly to do them differently! I may do a pair the same, though. The current cushions lift off for them to BE little tables. They are great. Mary Ruth, you sweet cheerleader! Thank you so much!

My thoughts exactly - Although this board member seems to think a patch and cover job will suffice for both the flashing and the foundation sill. In my mind - we've got 55 years without major hassle and very little maintenance. It's time to upgrade, and nickel and diming is not the right approach when it comes to exterior water protection. :S