What are the tasks that you most love to do in the garden? Your transformed garden will accentuate the things you love to do and try to diminish the tasks you don't like so much. You may have to get creative about how you keep your favorite activities in the picture. Will you need to upgrade paths or stairs? Handrails or gripping posts in strategic locations? A graded slope instead of steps? What can / can't be changed to improve your ability to use the garden in the ways you most enjoy? The benefits of gardening are still out there--lowered blood pressure, exercise, keeping the spirit-mind-body thing whole. And we will go to amazing lengths to do the things we enjoy. If you love planting thingsÂevery yearÂbut you can see that getting down on your knees to plant a dozen flats of favorite annuals just isn't going to cut it for much longer, then think how you can satisfy that love. Raised beds, container displays, and hanging baskets come to mind. Also, you might upgrade to a spacious potting table, at just the right height, with all your tools conveniently to hand Here's a funny one for you. I love to sweep. Yeah, the blind gal likes the rhythmic methodical corraling of debris off the patios in back. Because I'm blind, and because I've always hated loud motors, I don't really want anything to do with motorized blowers. They turn me instantly into Helen Keller, blind and deaf. SoÂI don't yet need to plan a garden where someone else takes over a chore that I like to do. Create your own special space. I'm presuming that you will follow the general suggestions to think through your overall landscape design and to move toward more shrubs, small ornamental trees, and types of perennials of the reliably less demanding order. Since there is no such thing as a garden that can be put entirely on automatic pilot, this shift in design and plant material may give you plenty to do. But you may want to incorporate or accentuate an area or two that will work especially well for you. It might be a shaded meditation spot with some seating in it that is particularly kind to your body. Maybe the same area has a raised bed nearby which allows you to sit on the edge of the bed and fuss with the plants there. Or maybe you could shift from being a general plantaholic to becoming a tulip nut, or daylily crazy, or a hosta fanatic. There's something to be said for these old workhorses. They'll come up in pots, raised beds, or dirt piles in the driveway. There are endless varieties to collect and grow. If you've done your homework in converting your overall landscape to less maintenance, then you might find a focus on a particular plant a fun way to keep your passion for collection satisfied. Hope this helps. Wellspring

Shlacm: Unless you are very, very skillful in rooting cuttings, you will not be successful with cherry cuttings, assuming you can find any that are still dormant. The buds on dormant cherry cuttings will quickly begin to open when exposed to warm temperatures, causing the scions to dry out and die. Unless you can find someone to gift them, scions of named varieties are not cheap; you could spend nearly as much on several scion varieties as a single grafted tree. This would amount to throwing money down the rathole and is not my idea of economy. And fun is not watching scions dry out and die. In the unlikely event that you could get a scion to root before it leafs out, it would grow into a full-size tree, which would be slow to bear as well as very large indeed. Save your money, use the year or two to study available variety/rootstock combinations, and choose varieties that have the best chance for success in your new, permanent location. Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

I love using molasses , I mostly use the kandy kid dried kind and use my drop spreader all over my place it works wonder on the grass & plants I've always been told the sulfar in it runs the ants off and its a hoot watching the goats crawl around on their knee's licking the molasses off of everything! I have about a acre and very few ants. I put down the molasses twice a year . Hope that helps

Here ya go. Chewy Molasses Cookies (Annie CF) 1 1/2 cups of shortening (I use half and half with butter, but all butter makes them too crispy for my taste) 1 cups granulated sugar 1 cup dark brown sugar 2 eggs 3/4 cup of dark molasses 4 1/2 cups flour 1 teaspoon salt 4 teaspoons baking soda 2 teaspoons cinnamon 2 teaspoons ginger 1 teaspoon ground cloves Chopped crystalized ginger, optional, to taste. I used about half a cup, finely chopped and wish I'd have used more but I love ginger Coarse sugar or turbinado sugar for rolling Cream the shortening and sugars. Add the molasses and eggs and mix until well blended. Sift the flour (yeah right, I don't, LOL) and measure 4 1/2 cups into a separate bowl. Add the spices, salt, and baking soda and whisk to combine. Turn the mixer to low or stir, and add the flour slowly until well mixed. Stir in the chopped ginger and chill the dough for at least an hour. After the dough has chilled for an hour, roll tablespoonfuls of the dough into balls and roll the balls in the coarse sugar to completely coat. Place the dough balls about an inch apart on a greased or parchment-lined cookie sheet and bake for 12 to 15 minutes in a 350 degree oven. The cookies will puff up and crack. When the cookies are done the cracks should still look a little wet, but the outside should look dry. They'll "fall" a little as they cool, let them sit a couple of minutes on the sheet before you try to move them to cooling racks.