Thanks Mary. This cool damp spring has been good for the garden here. Another example of thinking about/using shaping the negative space to add impact is, I've found, to use the shape of one bed to determine the shape of another one, by making the intervening grass or mulch path or lawn a constant width so the two beds 'fit' together like pieces of a jigsaw. That's what we did when we made what we call 'the moat bed' - because it runs along the top of the ditch by the road in front of the house. The outer edge of the bed is a straight line running parallel to the road at the top of the ditch. The inner edge was created by measuring an approx. 3' distance from the main front bed. The resulting 'moat bed' is very narrow due to the space limitations but its tight link to the larger bed, the smooth line of the grass path, and the merging with the driveway border at the south end turned several discrete beds into one linked whole that has a lot of impact even in the fall/winter bare seasons. Of course, its maximum impact is when there is a big floral show going on :-) This show has just finished for the year but you can see that the bed and path layout/connections add value and impact to the picture: The same sort of shaping the negative space helped my neighbour to the north link an smooth-edged kidney-shaped island bed to a wavy-edged perimeter bed in the back yard. I suggested she measure a constant distance (in her case it's about 8' or so) from the island bed to the perimeter one. The original 'wavy' edge of the perimeter bed was then adjusted to be a smooth curve so now the lawn sweeps smoothly around between the island bed and the perimeter bed . The island is now both a separate feature but also closely linked to the rest of the garden space, and the whole feels much more relaxed. This post was edited by woodyoak on Wed, Jun 12, 13 at 11:05

Update on the eggs... they're little chirping babies now. I can hear them but I can't get close enough to see them because (what I presume to be) the male bird keeps fussing at me when I even step out on the deck. He better get over that real soon - I'm not finding a new place to drink coffee ;-) I'll try to snap a picture. The mom and dad are so cute out collecting food and bringing it back. They've got their little routes established to and from the garden to go hunting for worms or bugs. It's pretty funny that he has to sleep outside the nest now - he sleeps curled around the Red Lion bulb up against the pot edge. I'm glad they're enjoying that bulb as much as I did last winter. Alana

I used a recipe off the web: http://home.pacbell.net/lpoli/page0003.htm#DRY (the coppa product) Didn't use sodium nitrate in the Prague powder just sodium nitrite and added minced garlic instead of garlic powder. Chucked in some pimento, nutmeg and cinnamon for a trial. Got the skin from a mate of mine who runs a smallgoods factory but butchers will have them. Used a pork neck and flavoured the outside with black pepper/glucose mix I think to get the lactic acid formation. No sign of 'green' which is a good sign and it smells OK. Was very particular re hygiene (That's the old Food Technologist coming out) Maybe I'll do one for Marysville.(There are plenty of toilets in the houses - just joking)

I imagine probably a lot more time than it takes us to plant an entire car trunk load of plants out. LOL