My fantasy garden is a garden where I walk across the lawn (for the kids) that is edged in flowerbeds filled with flowers, some spring flowering trees here and there...to a garden gate with a rose covered arbor. This garden is fenced on all four sides. On all sides of this fence (or maybe wall) is covered in once blooming rambling roses. In front of those is more roses. Within this in the very middle is a sitting area and also a gazebo covered in more roses and clematis. a small fish pond with bubbling water or small waterfall. Around this area is raised beds made with rock filled with more rose, hybrid musks, polyanthas, mixed with some more roses, lots of flowers and herbs. Maybe a cherry tree somewhere for some shade or a pomegranite and a fig. There would be paths meandering inbetween all of the beds with small areas like rooms within a room. A Large arbor with a bench swing in one of these areas. From the gazebo in the middle paths would take off in different directions and you would have to walk through a vine covered arbor for each of them. There would be a rustic looking post here and there with a bird house on top with a clematis or other climbing vine on it. There would be lots of foxgloves, delphiniums, salvias, echinacia, daisys. A bird bath. When you walk through the garden gate to get into the garden to the right would be another gate on the other fence going out through another rose covered arbor to a potager garden. It would have raised beds filled with veggetables. One side would have a grape arbor with a place to sit under it. The outside fence would be covered with morning glories (they would never get out of control) There would be lots of sunflowers. One side would of course have roses spilling over the fence from the other garden. There would be strawberries, blueberries, raspberries. One end would have a grassy area with a small fruit orchard...apples, peaches, plums, pears, cherries. Nothing would ever have to be sprayed, no bugs would eat anything. The colores in the flower garden would be white, pink, purples and blues with soft yellows mixed in...sigh

Well you are seeing most of what is planted. LOL I have a bed of greens, Sugar Snap peas, four kinds of potatoes, asparagus, and a ton of onions. I have had 10 tomato plants in the ground since before the cold weather, and I added 11 more today plus a couple of flowers. In the last few days I have been to Mansfield MO to Baker Creek, to LeFlore County OK, and over into Arkansas at Highway 40 and back up through Fayetteville, Fort Smith, Springdale, etc. I waved to several of you as I went by. I can't seem to stay at home long enough to get my garden planted. I planted tomatoes today in the bright sun and the temp at 80 degrees, so some of them started to wilt really quickly. The ground was wet from an early morning rain so they should perk back up overnight. I didn't cage them, and put a row cover over them to cut the sun glare and the wind a little until they establish. I noted as I was planting that I really had a lot of small tomato types, but that may be a blessing since they are going in so late. They should set fruit a little better than the beefsteaks would. I haven't planted the determinate types yet. I will keep them apart from the others because I will probably take them out when their production slows. I also have to start counting tomato cages since I had hoped to keep a few of the larger ones to grow some pole beans on. My garden is not huge, so a lot of the hot season things can't go in until the Spring things come out. Another observation: I had tomato plants in pots, soil blocks, and styrofoam cups. and there was a huge difference in the quality of the transplants. The ones in the cups were not as healthy, not as full, and suffered weather damage while I was moving plants in and out, where the others thrived. The root system was not nearly as good in the cups either. I first thought it was due to them growing in a smaller amount of soil than the pots had, but they were not anywhere close to being root bound, and in fact, needed more roots. Even the ones in 2 inch soil blocks did better than the ones in the cups. I also noticed that they dried out much faster. Dawn, I know you grow in cups and your look like trees, but mine were inferior.

Aimless, I encountered a similar problem with the upper cabinets when I renovated my current kitchen. The old ones were built in place, and were a full 12" on the INSIDE. New standard factory built cabinets are 12" on the OUTSIDE. I have hand made plates that needed to be put above the fridge because they no longer fit in the plate cupboard. Out of sight, out of mind. So we never use them anymore. :( For weeks afterwards, I was measuring cabinets everywhere to see if my cabinet company had cheaped out on me. But no, I've never seen a proper sized cabinet anywhere. Stupid, stupid things that they seem to rely on the consumer not to know about. And I'm guessing you're on slab, and that's why you needed to know about your floor outlets early?

Rhizo, I have a policy....if it's on my patio, it must die; everywhere else, they must get off my plants. They can be on the ground, the fences or in corners...fine. But I can't relax on my own patio when I know one is close by...and I have tried! And in the home is non-negotiable---they must die. This was the first one I even considered keeping, only because it had so quietly built a home right there so close to my leg and hadn't bothered me to date. It was also amazing watching him or her carry up the styrofoam! Look at that thing! Lol I didn't use the picture because you couldn't see any identifying marks until I got my SLR, but I took about 20 pictures of this guy lol. violet, I get how you feel. I used to use pest control services religiously but I stopped around 2007 or so. Whatever it was I was having them target was always back within two days...senseless. They'd come out again but nope, two days later, there they were....