Well - bummer - I think all serious gardeners can testify to the fact - that any beautiful garden is HEART WORK. Sorry about the spelling - too many Cuba Libres ... to see straight and fell in a rugosa rose bush. We can't all be Martha Stewart's and have Tax deductable gardens maintained by an army of illegal aliens ..... We all make the most out of what we have - the soil, the gardens (small or big) , our climate - but still many elements of gardening is HARD WORK. Your garden and roses is always a joy to see Ingrid! And Melissa's posts are a testimony that those longing for more acreage are in for even more WORK. Over the years we do however smarten up (????) and quit growing roses that simply do not do well for us and reduce their numbers and choose cultivars better for us, our soil and climate and the amount of time, money and work we can afford to spend gardening. But we all love our roses .... I have only posted a bit the last year Melissa and Ingrid - Health problems - surgery and getting myself and my garden back in shape has been hard work - but I am THERE! And my roses have started blooming and will peak during the next 3-4 weeks up here in Northern Europe. I would love to have a few garden helpers like the Fella on the picture ... Only fear is that my visitors would pay less attention to the roses in my garden ... And so Sorry Janelle - it is way too hard to find garden helpers like that! I wear them out too fast myself ...

After some long discussions with York reps and with Honeywell (who does the zoning equipment), I think (if the HVAC guy doesn't come down on price) I may have them run 2 trunks in the basement, and feed the appropriate ducts into each. i.e. have all the 1st floor ducts go into the trunk for the 1st floor and the 2nd floor ducts into the trunk for the 2nd floor. Then have them put in a manual damper near the beginning of each trunk, and have them run a thermostat wire upstairs for future use. I can't imagine this would be much more work than what they're planning on doing anyway. Remember the main plenum/trunk isn't even run yet. That way I can go the first year and see how bad the temp differential is between floors. And I could simply manually adjust the dampers each season (likely close off the 1st floor by a certain percentage) so that more or less air flow goes where I need it. If it doesn't work out, or if it does but my manual adjusting is too much work, I can do the zoning in the future without too much more cost, since the trunks are already done. I figure at that point, they'd just have to add the zoning panel, hook up the 2nd floor thermostat, add the auto dampers etc. And at that point, I could at least have some other HVAC guys come in and get some competition and different ideas. Thoughts on this approach?

Wantonamara - I think you posted pictures of your project once. You gave me the inspiration. Plus, I like to recycle and reuse just about everything. Nil - funny you should mention that. Charlie and I were just wondering what happened to the 3 redwood Vanda Pots we had. They were on wheels and I loved them. Poof! How did we not notice their disappearance? Cactusmcharris - I did not plan legs for that cart and I now regret it. So the next one will be taller! I don't see why we can't add legs to this one later. I'm really trying to clear off my hot tub so we can actually use it. LOL

There is the classic order to doing a landscaping project: - utilities and regrading - hardscape - slow-growing plants - faster-growing plants For me, I just learned to live with the idea that the area immediately around our house, which had decades of deferred maintenance that needed to be done, was just going to look cr*ppy for however long it took to get the foundation and roof and insulation and so forth completed because I couldn't plant there. I knew that there were some areas I wanted gardens that were out of range of construction, and always invasives and for a season or two trash removal, so there was plenty to keep me busy. I like mixed borders and so I use bright pots, annuals, and quick-growing perennials to fill in gaps and distract from some of the mess while I wait for work to get done and larger plants to grow. As Yardvaark said, I try to address the ugliest parts first. Having the structure of any paths, walls, or other hardscape does help with tidying the look of things as does a consistent layer of mulch on areas waiting to be filled in. After 20 years I think I have pretty much stopped adding new gardens, but there is still plenty of maintenance that is waiting.