Kentucky - I have been trying to figure out how to make some raised beds- or raised pots for the front yard landscaping. I don't want the look of basic garden vegetable beds for around the front of the house though. I thought maybe I could dig 2 ft hole and put a 2 ft raised planter on top of it, that night work. I iam also thinking about making very big planters (they are ridiculously expensive to buy. I am not sure about the aestetic for my front landscaping, but after considering many materials and my craftsmanship capabilities I have a plan. I will just have to try it and see how it looks. It could sit above ground, part in ground or in ground. My design is 2"x2" wood frame cube (or taller) dark cedar stained (ECO friendly and plant safe). Side and bottom panels of 1" hardware cloth. Inner lining of natural burlap. It would sit on 8" concrete blocks (in ground) with the hole side up foradditional drainage. Inside bottom filled with river rocks then another lining of burlap to contain the soil and the plant and finally mulch on top, of course. It would have to be big enough to allow 3'x3' space for the roots to grow in the soil area. Again, the aestetic is the probelm (aside form all the hard work and digging). I think it wold look descent but odd. To build a retaining wall for the space under the front window of the house would not look right eiterh at the height I need it to be. I think the real solution is to pay for a backhoe to come in here and excavate the clay and then have new soil put in - way too expensive for me right now. I do have one narrow strip on the west side of the front yard that I am lining with concrete blocks to build up that soil area. I plan on very tall trellises lining that hill (all my land is hilly) and covering them with rose and jasmine vines as a privacy fence. The probelm is the area is part shade - never sunny and that is not goo for any of the plants I like. I bought the Charles Darrow Hybrid Musk for that location as it is reported by others to grow and bloom very well in shade. I also have some varieties of Jasmine that might do in that spot. I am also thinking of Camelias and Sky Pencil Holly. My Hollies are about 1ft tall now. It will be years before they grow big enough.

While this is bumped, will circle back to say my 'Perfume Princess' was planted last weekend. In a raised mini-bed abutting a north facing stone wall. Amusingly enough, after waiting years to get one of these suckers, and finally ordering it from the very reputable Dancing Oaks which was one of the first mail order nurseries to offer it...suddenly Monrovia's website has changed/updated in a way that "allows" it to be sold to an east coast zone 7. But I'd prefer to support Dancing Oaks anyhow - and Monrovia wants 2X as much for it - it's just that for at least the 2 prior springs I had been trying to order it with Monrovia's "order and pickup at a local nursery" which OUGHT to be the wave of the future for large wholesalers, but it wouldn't let me. I don't think the way they are going about implementing it is particularly intelligent. If there is some reason they think it isn't suitable for your area, the website ought to inform you of that. "We shall see what we shall see"

Yep, for sure I would have included the name of the nefarious nursery but it isn't applicable on your side of the Atlantic. I do use mail order because I am generally good with buying small plants in 9cm pots (which is pretty standard for mail order). There are plenty of really decent ones too, even sending out plants in 2-3litre pots. I recently bought a Rooiguchi clematis from the sole supplier in the entire UK...from the other end of the country...after waiting for 3 years or so for one to appear on the UK market, so sometimes, mail order is the only option. I received a small, but very healthy little specimen which will, I think, do very well indeed for me. I tend to avoid impulse purchases, use nurseries I trust and generally never browse randomly on the internet and press 'buy' at the drop of a hat...but late night mindless (witless) insomnia and before I managed a shred of rational thought, I had 9 plants in my basket. I am not a driver and there are no nurseries accessible on my bike, apart from some spendy and very limited garden centres. One of the main reasons that the vast majority of new plants have been patiently and laboriously grown from seed...and my lack of £££ of course.

One early spring day about 20 years ago, one of our bonsai club's officers and I went downstate shopping for deciduous plant material for a workshop we were planning. They were Jacqueline Hillier elms in 2 gal pots at $27/ea. 2 weeks later I went back to buy 7 of the trees for those who signed up for the workshop and the trees had been bumped to 3 gallon pots and priced at $49 ..... and they wouldn't sell me 7 at the old price for the club, so I left. I think we ended up ordering some dwarf white mulberry from a nursery. Al