Without a doubt, my garden vision would best be described as an extension of my personality. It's not all that uncommon for me to be referred to as weird nor for my reply to be a simple thank you. My garden isn't often painted in such a harsh shade but more so in a never seen anything quite like it tone which I generally acknowledge to be a compliment ;-) My motto has almost always been that necessity is a mutha and my garden began under that premise. The landscape was a disaster both cosmetically and structurally. My conscience would not allow me to put my wife through the embarassment any longer and some erosion/water torrent issues required urgent structural changes to a hillside. In an attempt to begin to solve the hillside issues, I started with an 80,000 lb pile of rocks that would soon become the foundation for my 3/4 of a decade 3,000,000 pounds of hardscape garden vision. As that first pile of rocks began to be placed and transformed into a koi pond and rock garden, my vision started to take shape. Knowing absolutely nothing of landscape design or what style was what, I simply decided to take advantage of my odd lot shape and changes in elevation and try to change scenery and style around every corner. Virtually every section has a water feature, a different pathway surface, different specimen type plants and my own fence and gate designs. Some sections are a bit more formal, some more natural but all are filled with a lot of color, both in foliage and flower. Along the way as I was getting closer and closer to it all coming together, I started to recognize the amazing contribution that roses were making to my overall scheme, especially when it came to my constant quest for late summer color. That's what brought me to these great rose forums. While I consider that a great thing, I suppose some who grow weary of my gallery postings might beg to differ. Nevertheless, I am now somewhere between 60 and 70 roses and counting and can finally begin the task of perfecting my care techniques for them.

Where my beds are next to lawn, I spade edge once in the spring and keep it trimmed with the lawn mower the rest of the season. Most of the garden consists of exposed aggregate paths- no need for edging, or gravel paths between the beds. The gravel paths are edged with fieldstone- plentiful in this farm country except on my farm. But most farms locally have piles of stones located on the roadside to pilfer freely! The gravel paths go into the forest with fieldstone edging till they round a curve and then the fallen boughs edging starts in the forest near the house. this is fun- I collect fallen boughs of varying length and diameter in different piles after trimming sidebranches off. When I need the ''edging'' I go to the nearest stack, grab a bough that looks good and carry it along the path till it fits in the curve or along the straight. In the Westcoast rainforest, the boughs decompose, become moss covered and also grow ferns and other plants. The forest paths are packed earth that I run over occasionally with the rideon mulcher. Planting is varied along the edges... I'm 6'2'', 187cm...bending over to admire plants is not my thing. I edge with tall and medium plants and (try to) make tunnel effects thru the borders with different plants in focus depending on the viewing angle. This works best serendipitously despite my best efforts. ... Don

Have a look at the FAQ for this forum. There is a question "how is shade defined?". Here is a link that might be useful: FAQ

Thank you, ronnatalie! Using your guess for division of space, then, I will need to move that receptacle that is on the other side of the refrigerator's end wall (where the breakfast table will be) off of the small appliance circuit and onto the AFCI-protected general-use circuit for the sitting room area, right? Your guess does seem the most obvious. But I'll check with our inspector to be sure he agrees. As far as GFCIs, I might end up simply protecting the entire circuit with a GFCI breaker, rather than use individual GFCI receptacles, just because I've found those to be more of a pain to wire, especially when you have multiple connections in a box. My mom and I are doing the wiring ourselves so trying to keep things as hassle-free as possible! I was originally going to use a 20A double pole GFCI breaker to feed both small appliance circuits to save wire, but that breaker is really expensive ($115!).... so I might go back to two separate 20A breakers after all.