Beautiful place! Thanks for the tour... :-) The horsetails were certainly eye-catching but there's no way I'd ever consider planting them anywhere! That post-modern picture did remind me of a house near here that is very restrained and attractive in front with a white stucco wall at the roadside that is about 4' tall with ~1' opaque glass panels every 5-6'. There is some moderately tall narrow deciduous trees behind it, spaced well apart with white paniculata type hydrangeas between the trees; the flowers are just visible across the top of the wall. So it's a green and white picture that is somewhat stark and geometric but very calm. The house is right on the shore of Lake Ontario and right beside a major road so the wall provides privacy and screening but also doesn't present an unfriendly blank face to the world. It's very well done - much nicer than the house itself! (The house has been much renovated at several times and somehow still doesn't quite look like it has reached its potential yet:-)

Those pics make me want to run away from home! A definite must for the imagination. Thank you Ronda. Carla

Julia, I started adding bulbs to a few of my daylily beds where the daylilies are planted rather randomly. Since they don't bloom at the same time they can go anywhere. I didn't put in daffodils just tulips, alliums and narcissus. It really makes your gardens look nicer in the spring. I try to mark each clump with a stick or something or before you know it I am planting something over the bulbs and digging them up! I also put in many lilies although I was blessed with beetle for the first time last year so I don't know where that's going. I put shorter pot lilies around the front of the beds and taller ones mixed throughout. We just had a lady came and talk to our hort group on Tuesday about bulbs, specifically tulips. She came from Holland in 2007 where they grew tulips for the international cut flower market. She said your tulips will last much longer if you dig them up every summer and give them a rest in a cool dark place, then plant again in the fall. Too much work for me but I remember my grandmother always doing that. Every June or July her bulbs would be under her picnic table drying out. This lady also said the older varieties will last for many more years than the newer ones. Try to buy the biggest size bulbs you can. And while planting them deep protects them from frost and freezing, the deeper you put them the more energy the bulb has to use to grow stem up that far. I didn't really think of that before. It's sort of a trade-off I guess. Maybe not too deep and mulched? Many of the tulips I had around my house didn't bloom this year. I think they got frosted as the flower was about to come up. Our speaker said they should still be fine for next year, maybe better as the plant didn't waste energy on a flower yet still had leaves to send energy to the bulb. I guess I will see. The ones further out in my beds did fine and after such a mild winter I found they had multiplied. So did my lilies. Daylilies and spring bulbs are a great combination as they have separate seasons so go for it! It's like planning the same garden twice. Debbie

I try to trick them into falling or jumping in a little rounded shovel. I place the shovel beneath them, and usually behind them. Then get them focused on my menacing hand, charge them, and they fall in. The sides of the metal shovel are slick. I dump them out on the ground and stomp them. This works for most. The ones that get away get wise, so the next time they see me, they are excited and a little harder to catch. The leaf footed stink bugs have wings. I have killed many, but not all. I try to stun them to get the upper hand. You have to move fast. As soon as it stops raining, I will be going out with the bugzooka. It is a plastic gun like device. You charge it by pumping the stock once and then place the end of the tube adjacent the bug, pull the trigger, and a rapid vacuum sucks him in. The best is supposed to be kaolin clay. Kaolin clay is naturally occurring and is supposedly common in cosmetics. When finely ground and applied in a solution to fruits, it leaves a residue that the bugs hate and they will leave. The residue is easily washed off. The stink bugs are not harmed, just encouraged to go elsehwere.