Well Im not sure what "style" but this is kinda what I have had in mind as far as style (maybe but Id like your ideas)! The little ugly shack looks like a mini mansion on the inside (all the extras, hardwood floors, custom cabinets etc.) so Im looking for maybe something sophisticated, rich but with natural/neutral , bare minimal of plants (because of the snakes). The house will be painted a natural lovely rich greenish/tan to blend in with the landscape. I have a huge stack of taxes flat rook stones so I thought Id make a walkway with them? I found a very cute evergreen type small shrub (#2 picture) I just love it! So I wanted to use those on each side. I think I liked the big rocks (mirror image on each side of the walkway in the front). I wanted to use stone work for the rest of the foundation because the rocks are free & it really makes the place look nicer. Can anyone tell me if they make a a-symmetrical conifer tree that doesn't get to large (maybe 12 ft or smaller)? Iv been to a bunch of plant stores & Im having trouble finding interesting small trees. Iv got several large japans maples in pots but everyone uses them now so Im not sure if thats what I want. I really like the look of small pines more so then maples & I think the maples will look out of place? Id set some of them around in pots & see if I can find a spot for 1 or 2 of them. Also any cool looking unique small trees I could put in pots on either side of the front steps? It wouldn't have to live in a pot I could plant it next to the concrete. Im not looking for comen plants. Id like it to be interesting & rich looking (this poor shack needs a BID face lift so I need to spend some on the exterior). We live way out in the woods so low maintenance is a must & Im not big on flowers at all. The Clemet's in the front adds a little (I think but what do I know) it really looks nice when the yellow rose type tiny flowers bloom. There's also another vine in that mass of greenery. Its a white flowering fine, Im sorry but I dont know the names of either? The circle drive way is where Im standing in the 1st picture (Im taking the picture). So the walkway goes to it & then in picture #3 the patch leads up the hill to the chickens coop & the orchard. I visit both areas all day long as you can see from the dirt patch but Im hoping to make a pretty tx. flat rock path soon. Funny thing is the chickens have there 8x8 house completely done, insulated, painted inside & out with an arbor on the side of the house with a nice grape vine on it. Our house isnt done & the guest house looks like this! So if you want to see what color Ill be paining house & all the buildings, I can go out & take pictures of the hens house. LOL I really like the wide walkway in the picture & I like the idea of the bushes on the left hand side. Also I really like the idea of not having steps on the porch but its used allot but I need to enclose it soon to keep the snakes & the (too friendly) yard bantams off.

Hi Brent, I've enjoyed growing blue fescue from WS...I was transplanting some of my older grasses today and I will be moving my fescue clumps this weekend. Blue fescue does start out as individual blades, from their base they will grow more blades to become a clump. Each blade seedling that you have now can become a clump on its own or you can put a few together and have a tighter, fuller clump. When I did blue fescue I took those seedings and put them into a holding bed for a few months, during that time they put up new blades. By mid summer I was able to transplant the small clumps into the garden without fearing they would get lost. Today they edge a rocky border and need dividing--the clumps are about three years old. they began to bloom in their second season. In spring they need a little shearing to trim off the tops of the blades that died back in the winter, but they are greening--bluing(?) up nicely already. I hope this helps, Trudi

What a wonderful list Nancedar provided! With everyone else's suggestions, too, alicia, you should have plenty to get you started. I've grown the chocolate mint before - it is a must have with a caution. Find yourself a very wide and deep pot. Plant the mint into the pot, then sink the entire pot into the garden. This helps keep the plant from taking over, so long as you watch for any that try to escape over the edge of the pot. Chocolate mint leaves are great to float in your hot chocolate. You can also put a few in with some powdered sugar overnight before using the sugar in a frosting. Adds a nice, subtle, minty flavor. But I digress... The Eupatorium 'Chocolate' is also a great plant, but needs a lot of moisture or afternoon shade, as it wilts easily on a daily basis. It flowers late, though, so it's useful for extending the bloom season. For trees/shrubs that could also be incorporated, there's: Albizia julibrissin 'Summer Chocolate' ($150!) Hydrangea quercifolia 'Pee Wee'(foliage turns chocolate/burgundy in Fall) Pittosporum shrubs are said to have chocolate scented flowers I've included another link I found that includes a plant list for a Chocolate Garden designed over in Europe. You'll have to research some to see if they grow here. As for my previous idea in another thread for using cocoa hulls to mulch a Chocolate garden, it seems they may or may not (depending on who you listen to) be a bad idea if you have dogs. But let's not clog up this thread with that debate. Isn't it amazing how many "chocolatey" plants there are out there? Here is a link that might be useful: The Chocolate Garden

Something else that falls into "recycling", sort of, is to learn to "use what you've got". I know people who take a tiller out to their garden every spring and till every single thing up. It doesn't matter if something came back up from the roots. It doesn't matter if the tiller shot a poor little toad out of the ground, now missing a leg. It doesn't matter if the tiller unearthed grubworms that scramble back into the soil and no one picks them up before they disappear. Stuff like that. I do a lot of walking around out in my garden. I look at things and see what came back up, I check the blackberry vines for signs of life, and the mulberry tree, and the thornless currant bushes. I actually rejoice in every little thing that's blooming, every little bud on an otherwise empty-looking stalk. Yeah, spring's the thing for me. I've been kind of concerned about whether I'm going to have any kale growing in the garden this year. Summer of 2015 and 16, I had Red Russian kale. It was awfully big and coarse, but I tore the leaves up in little pieces and ate quite a bit of it those two summers. In 2016 it went to seed, and kale babies popped up nearly everywhere in the garden. But most of them weren't in good places and I admit I kind of ignored them. I had gathered plenty of the seed and I knew I could plant more if I wanted to. But I didn't really want to because I found a type of kale I liked better. It was Blue Vates, a nice blue-green curly beauty that was very prolific in 2017. I picked a lot of it and put it straight into the freezer in ziplock bags. After they were frozen I smushed the bag with my hands and the leaves broke into little pieces, perfect for tossing into beans or soups, scrambled eggs (with onion), or into a milkshake that also included some frozen strawberries. Yep, I got my money-s worth on that purchase of seed from a little country store in Chouteau, OK. Actually there was several years' worth of seed in that bag. Now, those folks know how to fill a seed package. So today I went looking for little surprises in the garden. Woo-hoo! There was this kale plant, and one other, coming up from the root of an otherwise couple to totally dead-looking stalks. I set about clearing away the tangle of Henbit and Baby Blue Eyes, so I could see if there was more, and there was (so far) no more in that bed, but there was another in the bed just across the path. I have cast some seed out there, just in case. I actually will need more than just two plants, anyway. If you ignore the Henbit (which, by the way, Jacob, my chickens used to literally FIGHT over), you may be able to see the Cilantro near the upper left corner. I don't usually do much with my Cilantro except to give it to my neighbor who also takes my extra peppers. But this year, I think I will harvest some for myself. I would like to make some salsa if I end up with enough tomatoes and onions. Of course the Cilantro will be gone to seed and done by the time I harvest those. What's up with THAT, I wonder??? I have had really good luck freezing certain herbs that don't hold their color and flavor well when they are dried, such as basil. I'm thinking about actually doing my Parsley that way instead of drying it. And I think I'll do some Cilantro that way, also, just in case I get to make that salsa. I'm sure you noticed the onions. I thought they were Candy onions that were actually too small to bother with last fall. These aren't large like Candy, so maybe they're something else. They divided, so that there were two fat "green onion"-type onions. I brought them in, cleaned them up and ate one in a Romaine lettuce wrap with a piece of sharp cheddar cheese wrapped in some Black Forest Ham. It was yummy but the onion was ~~~HOT!~~~ Really cleaned out the ol' sinuses. So I guess that confirms those weren't some of the left-behind Candy onions. No, they're not the Egyptian Walking onions either. Those are in another bed and they look different by quite a bit. And hey, if you have Egyptian Walking onions, it's getting about time to pull some at the time when they are at their best. Some of the Brussels' Sprouts look like this. The stalk to these plants went hollow and dry and the tops of the stalks were brown. I didn't think there was any point in leaving those standing. So I cut them off at ground level with the loppers. Now, new plants are coming up from the root. Here's one that chose another path to follow. Still green on the top. I think the ones that are like this will make seed this year. I'm going to be happy about that, because this variety is Roodnerf, an heirloom variety that is open-pollinated. I'm hoping to never have to buy seed for Brussel's sprouts again. While I was in the garden I found several fat grubworms. I used to give them to my chickens and they would actually come out to the garden with me and stick their heads in the way while I was weeding. Sometimes one chicken would peck some of the others if they got too close, but they would all gather around, all beady-eyed like chickens do. I really loved my little chicken flock, but it was just too difficult to keep them in the winter, and if we had to be gone for a few days, we just didn't like having to ask a neighbor to put them up for the night and let them out in the morning. So now I put the grubworms in a small basin near the birdbath and the birds have caught on quickly. So at least the grubworms serve some worthwhile purpose to make up for all the damage they do. I found the first fist-full of asparagus in the asparagus bed. I like to combine them with chopped onions and make Impossible Vegetable Pie, using swiss cheese instead of cheddar. https://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/impossibly-easy-vegetable-pie/569664c4-c405-4f0b-9fb6-720fd41bae39 The weeds I pulled while I was out there went into the stock tank with some water. I'm taking a stab at making "weed tea". I have read it is very rich in minerals and other good stuff because those weeds go quite deep into the soil. When the "tea" is finished brewing, I'll give everything that's growing now a little nip. And the solids will go into the compost bin. I don't worry about weed seeds being in the "tea" as it's just too late to worry about something like that, my garden having been neglected too much in previous years. I don't put my kitchen scraps in the compost bin. Just weeds and garden flotsam and jetsam. I dig a hole in the garden and drop the scraps in, then cover it. Only now and then do I ever have anything digging into it, and I've never seen what it is or how it gets inside the fence. That concrete block has either been free for the taking or priced low at garage sales or from ads in the newspaper. They are heavy and hard to work with but we use them in many ways. I'm down to one little Albion strawberry plant in the strawberry bed.I dunno. I'm about to throw in the towel on this one. I can get strawberries by the flat at Aldi's during the spring. Watch the ads, that should be happening very soon. Their price has been better than anywhere else here for the last several years. I just clean and cut them up, stir in about half a cup of sugar for a gallon of berries, let them sit in the refrigerator till the juices have covered the berries, then I put into whatever size container I want, and freeze. They are not rubbery when thawed, this way. Hubs' favorite use for strawberries is Fresh Strawberry Pie. Here's a recipe that's not too much astray from the one I use: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/12156/fresh-strawberry-pie-i/ I wouldn't think the Splenda added would even be necessary, though. Some things are just more expensive to grow than they are to buy after being grown by someone else. I think strawberries are that for me. One thing about being frugal is knowing "when to cut bait and go home".