Cross referencing with your other thread, it seems your walkway is flared at both ends. From your drawing here I thought it wasn't. OK, so you aren't going to re-pour it, and I wouldn't either. If you were, I would not make that corner a right turn, but rather redraft the whole thing into a more gradually curvy swoosh reaching further down the driveway. You could leave the narrow bed by the garage wide enough for something, but to be honest, I think even with a redo I really would just pave to the wall - fill in the whole bed. Plants don't like growing in that situation anyway. With what you have I would tend towards a concept that works for me in my narrow beds: Basically a container gallery with plants at their feet. You could fill in the whole bed with pavers and put in a killer container gallery, or make it a container gallery among plants like mine. Your plants can be a single ground cover or a collection like hostas, hellebores, etc. In short, a bed like this only avoids being a plant line-up with a LOT of hardscape (can include wall art). If you really don't want containers, then study columnar conifers. Say, Taxus media 'Flushing,' Taxus baccata 'Golden Dwarf,' and the other usual suspects. Very structural stuff, including anything smaller you put in and can prune fairly flat (Cephalotaxus might be cool like that, has great foliage up close). But stay as far back from the door as you can with anything tall or wide. I would not do vines here. I would do structure. Structure is really missing from all the plants you have there too. Indeterminate blobs. You need big leaves. But I'm suggesting containers because to me your yard really needs hardscape. I know you have rocks, but they echo what I think is a bit of a design failing IN your beds (never mind their shape for a moment): kind of a tendency toward... spots? That captures what I don't like in your narrow bed now, what I don't like about the rose bed (and sorry, I hate those plants anyway - more indeterminate blobs with small leaves), and what I don't like about the rocks you've got. Plop. That's kind of the way I see a lot of those placement decisions. Collecting your boulders into groups might be much better. Collecting your plants into groups would too. I know all this doesn't address overall design, but that narrow bed isn't likely going to be part of any overall design anyway as it doesn't have "line" connection with anything you might do on the property (unless you can apply Woody's idea of running lines across the walkway...). I still like Woody's drawing but as far as overall design is concerned, I LOVE pls's concept. I wonder what would happen if you erased all the beds you've got and tried to sketch that out. Maybe boulder rearrangement could be guided by this concept at least. And it might enable you to keep some of the house wall clear. So I'm rambling a bit, sorry. Yes, I see bed shape as a problem here, but I think bed design/planting scheme is also contributing to the whole composition not working. Focal points, structure, hardscape, garden furniture... I think that is where you will need to go once you have bed shape worked out. It is not only plants that contribute balance, unity, repetition, etc. Actually now that I think about it, my plant zoo is actually irrelevant to my yard's design. I could move all my plants into different positions tomorrow, and the overall impression the yard makes would remain the same based on the hardscape alone. I think you are expecting the plants to BE your design, and that is maybe the fatal flaw. Karin L

Well, it took a little longer than usual, but my plans finally came together. Like several others here, I am a collector & preservationist, so many of these varieties are not widely known: Beans: ___"Atlas" - from GW swap; bush, medium-large seeds w/coloration very similar to "Cranberry". Dropped by the trade, so I hope to keep it in circulation. ___"Bosnian Pole" - from GW swap w/Remy, from... guess where? ;-) Only had 5 seeds to start with, and only one plant survived squirrel attack last year. Fortunately, that one plant produced lots of seed, so I hope to actually eat some this year, and have seed to swap. Very unusual seed, changes color as it ages... goes from black & buff, to black, buff, and pure white. ___"Brita's Foot Long" - white seeded pole variety, very good quality as a dry bean. Originally from Salt Spring Seeds (Canada), which no longer ships to U.S. Sent a lot of seed out for this, so need to replenish my stock. ___"Chester" - pole, from an SSE swap. Large flat black & white seeds, similar to small limas. Allegedly a good shell bean. ___"Chiclet" - pole, from GW swap with Lynnt earlier in this thread. Medium-large tan seeds that are squarish & white as shellies, hence the name. Originally from Sicily, probably a Romano-type snap. ___"Cornfield, Striped" - pole, from an SSE swap. Small, shiny, very fat red & tan seeds, uncertain as to usage. ___"Emerite" - high-quality pole snap, from Vermont Bean. My other main-crop snap, "Fortex", gets a year off for good behavior. ;-) ___"Jimenez" - pole snap, from GW swap, originally from Thompson & Morgan. 3 of 5 seeds germinated last year, and only one survived rabbit attack (they were really bad last year). Heard good reviews, hope to taste a few this year, and increase my seed enough to share with others. ___"Ma Williams" - pole, from SSE. Outstanding shelly. Like "Brita's", have shared a lot of seed for this, and need to replenish my stock. Main crop shelly. ___"Monterosa" - bush, from USDA. Large black & white seeds, trial as a shelly. ___"Porcelain" (a.k.a. "Snowcap") - pole, from SSE swap. Beautiful large seed, red stripes over buff, with a white "cap" on one end. Trial for use as a shelly. ___"Tetovac" - pole, GW swap, from Serbia. Very large flat white seed, probably Romano-type snap, trial for shelly. ___"Zlatac" - pole wax, from SSE swap. Bronze seed. Cowpeas & yardlongs: ___"Chinese Red Noodle" - yardlong, purple podded, originally from Baker Creek. ___"Galante" - yardlong, green pods, from Philippines. ___"Green Dixie" * ___"MN 13" * ___"Speckled Purple hull" * ___"Stickless Wonder" - bush yardlong, trial for comparison w/ "Yancheng Bush". ___"Thailand Pole" * (Those marked (*) were described earlier in this thread.) Limas: ___"Blue & White Fence" - a.k.a. Old Time Fence, pole type, from SSE, small black & white seeds. ___"King of the Garden" - pole, from Vermont Bean. Large-seeded, my main crop butterbean. Peas: ___"Dunn" - soup ___"Green Arrow" - shell pea ___"Gruno Rosyn" - soup ___"Purple Podded Parsley" - purple podded shell pea, with tiny leaflets in place of tendrils. After crop failures two years in a row due to bad weather, I was able to increase my stock a little last year, and hope to grow enough seed this year to share with others. ___"Plovdivski Podobren" - from Gatersleben, uncertain as to usage. ___"Sandy" - snow pea ___"Sugar Lace II" - snap pea. There's an exception to every rule, and this is the only PVP variety that I grow. Runner beans: ___"Tucomares Chocolate" - pole, from SSE swap, brown-seeded, red & white flowers. This will be my 3rd year of roguing out a white-flowered cross present in the original seed, hopefully this year the seed will be all brown. ___"Sunset Runner" - pole, pink flowers. Soybeans - still TBD, about 20 varieties. Most are the final remnants from the collection of the late Robert Lobitz. Misc: ___Adzuki, "Buff" - good soup bean ___Chickpea, "Brown Popping" ___Garbanzo, "PI 359241" ___Winged bean With our cooler than normal late May/early June, I started many of these in pots, where I would have otherwise direct seeded. Just waiting for a warm, dry day to put them out. Dean, that might work for you; it would give you time to dig up your new lawn. ;-)

Kathy, The frog and turtle bed should be easy. Ours is a lily pond in the ground, NOT surrounded by stone. (To me, a whole lot of stonework popping up in the middle of the grassy prairie where we have NO native stone visible just seemed too fake, and I am into having a landscape that fits in with our native prairie....up to a point.) Maybe someday I'll get tired of weedeating back the bermuda to keep it out of the sedges at the water's edge, and maybe then I'll replace it with stonework. Our pond is earth-bottomed so the frogs can dig into the mud to hibernate. It has water lilies, which gives them pads to sit on....and they DO sit on them! (I can divide the water lilies in the spring and bring some to the plant swap in April if your water feature will have room for lilies.) It has tall spiky plants (pickerel rush, horsetail reed, cattails (have them and wish we didn't) for the dragon flies to perch upon. The pond has a log in it for the turtles to climb on for sunning purposes. One end of the log rests on the foot of the 2' deep pond and the other end rests on the pond bank. Several turtles can sun on it at one time. Native prairie sedges planted themselves in the soil at the edge of the pond and the bermuda grass runs right up to the sedges. The sedges give frogs and turtles on land some taller vegetation for protection, because the chickens eat frogs (oh, yes they do!) and so do a couple of the cats (or, at least, they try to). In a bed several feet away from the pond, I have lots of plants to give the frogs and turtles a safe place to hang out on land when they wish to--away from the pesky cats and chickens. This bed has fairly low-growing junipers (a couple of feet tall, but with room underneath for both turtles and frogs), a chaste tree (vitex agnus-castus), a chinaberry tree (we had one when I was a kid and I love it even though it is not the highest quality tree), roses, swamp mallows, and various annual and perennial flowers. I let the growth here stay pretty thick to give the little critters protective cover. I also have cannas and the giant green elephant ears nearby to give the pond area a sort-of tropical look, and to give the frogs something to sit on. They like to sit on the big broad leaves. The turtles like to dig into sandy soil to lay their eggs, so a patch of sandy soil that can be dug up is handy, but they will lay their eggs wherever they choose. We have all kinds of frogs and turtles and, needless to say, all we had to do was dig a hole in the ground (Elvis, the guy who put in our tornado shelter dug the hole with his backhoe the same day he put in the tornado shelter) and the frogs and toads and turtles magically appeared. Our 'water feature' is more or less round--I didn't want it to look too perfectly round--and about 15' across. It is two feet deep, more or less, and has sloped sides so any small animal or child that falls in can crawl out. There is not a filter or pump, just Mother Nature, and the water is clear most of the time although we get an occasional algae bloom after a big rainfall in hot weather. We have a few mosquito fish and goldfish in the pond to keep mosquito larvae under control. A frog or turtle bed sounds like fun. I bet you could find stepping stones in a turtle shape if you like that short of ornamental thing in the garden. Of all the various landscape features we have, it is always the lily pond with its frogs and turtles and dragon flies and toads and fish that gets EVERYONE'S attention. People just want to sit and stare at it. I guess there's a little kid inside of each of us, and that kid loves the fogs, turtles and other creatures. The only wild things not welcome in our pond are the great blue herons who swoop in to stand in the pond and eat every now and then. The guineas always tell us when the herons have invaded the pond by gathering nearby and squawking their heads off. Then, the dogs and I walk out the door about 15' from the pond, and the heron flies away. Then, Honey, our little blonde terrier mix, chases the heron for as long as she can--usually until it's flown several hundred feet away, and then she returns to us, all proud and excited that she has protected us from the dreaded Great Blue Heron. (Yes, it is ALWAYS a zoo here no matter what.) I also like to have a lot of night-blooming flowers (daturas, brugmansias, four o'clocks, moonflower vine, etc.) nearby so we can enjoy looking at them and also enjoy their lovely nighttime fragrance while sitting out by the pond in the evenings. And, too, I keep several tropical plants in large pots near the pond because the smaller tree frogs love to hide in their foliage. (Not all frogs, after all, are water lovers! The tree frogs are one of my favorite local creatures.) Dawn

I just went out and sniffed mine and discovered it has far less scent in winter than it does in summer! I am still getting the "right" scent--which is way more garlic than onion--but it's pretty mild right now, I know what it "should" smell like, so I can definitely tell what it it, but if you didn't know what garlic chives smell like I can see how it might be confusing. If you wait till it warms up when it gets growing good in spring and then sniff again, you should be able to tell for sure if that's what it is, but if you're not getting a very distinct garlic scent by then I think it's probably some other species. Garlic chives seeds are black (or VERY dark brown!) and are about 1/8" in diameter, kind of flat, and concave on one side. The flower heads are very pretty (IMO!) and last a long time, which is why I keep it around, and the dry seedheads--sans seeds--would be very pretty in dried arrangements! I just checked and garlic chives is Allium tuberosum and I've linked a search page with pics below--keep in mind it's just a google search! The ones with pink or lavender flowers are not garlic chives! I looked thru my "postable" pics and could only find a couple of the garlic chives. I have lots more in the cameras, but I still have my hard drive crash/no working Picasa problem, so I can't post the newer pics yet. (A couple months ago I decided to finally get Picasa up and running again so I installed the newest version and started experimenting with their "latest features" with the few pics that were in the computer from emails and such and I put one disc of my pics in that need to be transferred from the old PC and as I was "playing around" all my pics started disappearing! Including a few that are now, somehow, permanently gone! I had put some of them into a "Picasa folder" in Downloads and anything with the word Picasa is GONE! Spent a couple days looking for answers in this "we don't care if it works for you or not" world, and never found anything or got any reply and gave up, discouraged, at that point! Really do need to give it another try---whatever happens!) Anyway, here are the very few garlic chives pics that I can post as of now! The first two are mostly in the shadow of the fence, but you can see the flowers fairly clearly, and the third is actually a pic of my tomatoes that year, but the garlic chives are on the right of the tomatoes against the (wet!) fence--kind of leaning against the wax bean bushes! They don't get nearly enough sun so they're always leaning toward the sun and then eventually flopping! Since you're not sure what you have I think I'd be a little bit careful about planting them anywhere you "care about," but since you have so much land, maybe you could stick them out along the bushes next to the road somewhere or something. I don't have a LOT of seedlings coming up, but I think thats probably because I turn the garden over 2-4 times a year, so most of the seeds are probably getting buried to deeply, but if you have them in an "undisturbed" place, I suspect you'd wind up with them reseeding much more prolifically than I do--IF they're garlic chives! Let us know in spring if that's what you think you have, Skybird Here is a link that might be useful: Garlic chives pics