I have to chuckle at Wellspring's aversion to my word choice of "display". Her lament is a mirror image of my aversion to the word choices used in the "Its about the journey more than the destination" thread. As long as I can stimulate the thought process, I consider my word choices a success even if an individual chooses to discard them for more favored prose. I will acknowledge that I also am a bit challenged how to best display the house featured in the currently running thread from Tennessee, "Landscaping Ideas". Admittedly, the word "display" certainly is not the first word that comes to mind. If more thoughtful consideration had been devoted before the purchase, the poster probably would have looked elsewhere. This situation certainly lends credence to Colebugs statement, "I get the feeling from reading many of the posts that many of us want to hide our homes, or at least hide portions of them with plants." On the other hand, I understand that personal circumstances often necessitate purchase of these ill-conceived house planning and siting blunders. I am sure that the owner enjoys their home it is just too bad that enjoyment does not include the landscape as well. As Laag so astutely noted, much of this morass could have been avoided by simply putting the garage on the other side of the house. My concern is not that persons aspiring to gain competency with their own landscapes use my term, "displaying". I would rather they use their own minds and develop their own terms. Too often we see folks wanting ideas to copy rather than effective concepts. I especially encourage people to take note of the sage advice from David (Bahia), an accomplished designer with a substantial body of work behind him. "If there was but one bit of advice that I would impart to anyone contemplating the design of a new garden/landscape, it would be to celebrate the local character of the region, to work with it, perhaps enhance it, but not to try and deny it altogether." I could not agree with him more. However, I wish he had told me that years ago! Instead, I had to blunder my way along and learn that lesson the hard way. I, too, started out parroting things I had seen. I was always left less than satisfied mainly because the advice I was hearing came from the east coast; but more accurately, originated in Great Britain. Horticulturally (and literally) the British growing environment is miles removed from my regional conditions. As I have been telling Midwesterners for years now: Gardening is like picante sauce Neither one should come from New York City. In a parallel way, Tony reinforces Davids advice in another thread where he said, "You must excuse British authors for not considering how a garden looks when covered in snow as this is rare in the UK. But if you live in a part of the world that has regular snow cover for a significant period in a year then it seems important to design around this rather than deny it." Clearly, this is essentially the same central thought; just expressed using different words. We always talk about thinking "outside of the box". Perhaps we need to also start thinking outside of the cardboard container or wooden crate maybe even start thinking outside of the packaging vessel. IronBelly

I'd espalier a rosebush in a tight space because the air circulation would be better rather than on a pillar, and I'd find it easier to prune. The Austin pink rose named "Mary Rose" would be a good choice for espaliering, it has a branching growth habit and attractive foliage. "Ulrich Brunner fils" can be espaliered, plus self-pegged which increases blooms by 33% or more during each bloom cycle. The advantage of an espaliered rosebush is that takes up one half of the diameter space of the original rosebush. instead of pruning on a horizontal plane, one prunes on a vertically placed plane. Espaliering is easy as pie after you've done it a couple times. Rosebushes that appear best when espaliered are the branching China, Tea, and Noisettes, Polyanthas and any rosebush that has a branching or twiggy growth habit. Those H.T.s and H.ps that are upright, stiff and gaunt with little foliage are not good choices for espaliering,as the bare canes stand out visually. Good luck, Luxrosa

Chad, great minds think alike. Now that there's sun there, and since Mike will not have to 'mow' the ivy, why have grass up against the fence? We only grew the grass to keep down the dust from the Santa Anas, anyway. Perhaps letting the goats eat the ivy is the way to go, and if I plant shrubs out six to ten feet or so from the fence the goats will not be able to reach them. Then irises in front. I have been trimming a 316 foot long chain-link ivy covered fence for 20 years- I think I could give up a hundred feet of it. Borderbarb, I am willing to sacrifice almost anything for Neighbor Peace, right up to and perhaps even including Family Peace. But never fear, the neighbors are good people. They just have some very cute, very hungry goats, and an old pepper tree. Gobluedjm, indeed, the tree limb could have fallen on Mikey's La Cage Mahal, the most wonderful chicken coop ever built, featured in Chickens For Dummies. Well, ok, not exactly featured, but depicted in a drawing. You can look it up. Really. What shrubs, though? I was thinking about a big sticky wad of blue plumbago. Anyone have truly bad experiences with this? Maybe I should begin a new thread...

dwsam used HTML code in his post, but doesn't know the correct code. IE is much looser in what it allows, so even though it isn't coded correctly, IE displays it. The post starts with a link tag, but the tag isn't properly closed, so FF ignores it. If you view source and save it as dwsam.html, then edit it so that the <link . . . ends with /> instead of just > it will display in browsers that require proper html.