Cheryl, I feel your pain - I moved into a new house (new to me) and the front is a tangled mass of ivy and vinca vine. We PULLED, pulled and PULLED some more to clear an area for a large flower bed. The roots go deep and the vines root where ever they touch the ground, so it will be years before you fully eradicate this nasty stuff. I would suggest hiring a teenager or two to come in and remove it by hand. You will need to pull it as it appears, but I have found that teenagers are much more able to bend than we oldies!

If you don't get answers here, the posters on the Home Repair forum may be in a better position to advise you on this.

Excellent advice for you from Allie. I only replace about 1/3 of my soil every year. In fact, I have a forsythia and a crab apple and cherry that I really don't replace the soil at all ... just scratch as much as I can off the top and add amendments. As for fertilizers, well, I am going organic this year, so I can't advise much except to say that based on what I did last summer, I would use Osmocote instead of those fertilizer sticks. It's time-release, so it's really not much of a bother ... once when you plant and maybe once in the middle of summer. Keep your mint in a pot, it is very invasive! I have to have it for my iced-tea in the summer, but only in a pot and I keep an eye on it. Can't think of a vine that will overwinter, so try moonflower and morning glory (moonflower has a delicious scent!) They won't bloom til later in the summer, but they did well for me. They get a bit ratty looking at the bottom, so you might want to put some pretty annuals in front of them to hide the bottoms. Latest from Union Square Greenmarket ... was there this past Saturday and was really surprised at the number of annuals they had already. Definitely the place to go for your annuals ... you can get 4" pots and 6-cell packs (though they didn't have many of those yet). I usually buy my annuals in cells ... if I want, I can spread them around more that way. You can get larger ones, of course, but til you see what does well for you, I'd suggest smaller in bulk. Plant days are Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. The Home Depot on 23rd St had lots of nice pots and flower boxes. I am partial to the foam ones ... lightweight (I move stuff around a lot)and better insulation for stuff you are trying to overwinter, especially the double-walled ones. And guess what? They deliver! And very reasonable ... think it was $14. Hard to advise you on specific plants. Since you had begonias, impatiens and hostas, I assume you have a lot of shade? Best to just go shopping and pick out what you like after checking the sun/shade requirements, etc. Welcome :-) Be sure to check out the Balcony gardening forum, also. And take lots of pics! Love seeing pics of other balcony/terrace/roof gardens, especially from my area!

I generally see 4 to 6' retaining walls made out of those blocks sold at Lowes and Menards with the lip you know? It systematically sets each block back 1" and then the installation instructions typically say to use a block landscape adhesive. I'm not using those, but they go up around the my area all the time with very little thought from the install crew(s). What puzzles me is they don't install crusher run behind the blocks. Sometimes I see drains near the second row of block, but without the gravel or course rock I don't see that being too effective. I am pretty sure soil around here is loamy clay. My specific soil has a good foot of gravel embedded clay then changes to an airy clay. I have a family member who has 6" thick poured walls from 3' to 8' with no geo reinforcement holding up still to this day from 30 years ago. The only thing I think is making that possible is they have a couple inside corners for stairs. I'm sure that helps stabilize things. I'm not sure if I made it clear, but, the highest wall would be 4' as I am doing two walls. I'm not talking 8' in one chunk. And as long as my terrace is twice the height of my wall, I am pretty sure I am mitigating a lot of that force on the first row. I realize a tiered wall is just as much pressure as the same height added together, but the whole idea is to spread the 2nd wall's load among the terrace so that load is not adding more soil pressure! I definitely am not going for the cheap block sold at the stores that is hollow. I'd love to go with those 2' x 16" x 16" solid blocks that weigh 100 pounds each, but I don't have the wallet or muscle to do that. :) What kind of pricing per face square foot is considered cheap there, gardengal?