Nothing wrong with the info you have been given but for your information and for placemnt of the veges on the w side of the house here is a list of the common veges that tolerate light shade. beets, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, lettuce, onions, peas, potatoes,radishes, spinach, with spinach being by far the most tolerant of shade. Common veges that require full sun include beans, corn, cukes, eggplant, peppers, squash (winter and summer) melons, and tomatoes.

Hi Lynn, love your adobe look walls in the front and your view in the back is wonderful. I'm glad you plan on preserving your view in the back and think it's great that you're thinking of water conservation. Since you're close to Santa Fe I hope you've been to High Country Gardens/Santa Fe greenhouse. I've been buying plants mail order from them for fifteen years and I understand they have some great waterwise landscaping at thier store in Santa Fe. In this month(Sept.) issue of Sunset magazine there is a Santa Fe landscape with adobe walls and a planter against the wall like what you are talking about. It does have a lot of plants in the ground also but it is a great backyard landscape by Wilder Landscaping. Your idea of all raised planters sounds very attractive and ambitious. I know you where conscerned about the heat situation with all that masonry. All your walls would act as a heat sink collecting the warmth during the day and then radiating it out at night. You would have cooler temperatures in the mornings from the walls and warmer temperatures at night. About the planters using less water I can't get around this idea. Planters because they are exposed to the hot summer air on the sides as well as from overhead actually heat up the soil more than in ground plantings. This makes them use more water not less. Of course you are talking about other issues too such as ease of planting and not having to deal with your rocky soil. Mulch is a great way to help keep soil cooler and use less water, rock mulch for more deserty type plants and organic mulch for others. And your shade trees will really cool things off for you too. If you use plants well adapted to your area you could really keep your water use down and not have to feel like you need all the planters.

Although a lot of the plants mentioned come under the heading of groundcover (covers the ground), to me the definition of groundcover means plant it and let it go with no maintenance. Plants like geraniums, dianthus, bleeding heart, and other similar ones mentioned require some maintenance. After the first blooms of geraniums if the foliage is ratty, I cut it down to generate fresh growth. I think of that type of plant as "front of the border" or "edger". If I had a large swath of "groundcover" on a bank for example, I would not want the huge job of deadheading it, let alone, cutting it back. Full fledged "groundcover" should not require deadheading. Well, on 2nd thought, I do deadhead my ajuga, only because it is in a small well contained patch between the patio and garage door and is very visible. I have a hill covered with wintercreeper amongs trees and shrubs. It is pretty large. zero maintenance is the only realistic possibility (unless one can hire gardeners to do huge tasks!! LOL). I guess the type of groundcover to use is affected by the amount of ground it needs to cover. I thought of another "groundcover" that is actually a shrub. Russian Cypress. Microbiota decussata. A nice alternative to junipers, the classic groundcover, but unlike junipers, RC can take some shade. not green in winter... bronze/grey. I have a few scattered about and they add nice texture to mixed beds. Not really appropriate for exclusively perennial beds. I think they can get as wide as 8' or so. Mine are about 4' wide after 3 years.

We bought a wood bedroom set approx 9 years ago and a wrought iron bed at the same time(and an extra antique dresser I picked up along the way). We did not like the look of using the matching bed with the matching wood furniture. The wrought iron bed also felt more "airy" in our room, which at the time, was not esp big. When we ended up with a crib and toddler bed both in it for a while when our kids were small, we were glad we had not gotten the larger sleigh bed after all as it was hard to find space to walk around our less bulky bed, lol. We just extended the bedroom in our current house and gave ourselves a much bigger closet. We are unpacking into it some more tonight (am at work now) so will be seeing if we can ditch one of the dressers from the set and give it to one son who now wants his own room away from his brother. The extra dresser we have is too girly for him with a pretty inlaid pattern in the front, so we would give him one of the matching parts of our set instead. I like having non matching stuff if they flow well, so have no problem breaking up our set. I am hoping to find either a pretty low hope type chest or a bench for the foot of our bed because we have a decent open space for one. If you have classic pieces, they work well with others. In our living room we have 2 dressers, non-matching that work as chests as well as a china cab which matches neither. Most of our furniture was bought or passed down over the years. The only set we really have is our bedroom one and our dining room set. I like how most of our furniture is unique from the others and has character. If I had a larger house, I'd continue to pick up interesting strays forever. I am attached to the ones I have though and will happily keep them for my lifetime, so will have to curb my habit. The problem is I walk into houses that are selling every day and have opportunities to pick up more pieces than most people have. If I see something intriguing and find out they are planning to sell it.....