I would remove all the wood chips since wood chips use nitrogen to decompose which is highly beneficial for a garden. Check with your county extension service for a soil test kit. In my area it cost nine dollars. Follow the instructions to the tee. Submit what you intend to grow usually general garden. Based on what type of soil is beneath the chips. Clay, loom, sand. I would definitely add compost, peat moss, some sand if clay soil and any elements indicated in the soil test. Lay your garden out on graph paper. Plant your short to tall starting south/southwest. You do not want to shade any plant. Do you have any varmints to look out for. ground hog, deer. skunk, raccoon. Have a heart trap. Happy Gardening!

Very Nice!!! You can grow in places you would never think. I enjoyed it very much. Thanks.

Thanks for the feedback, bindersbeeÂsounds like youÂve gotten some valuable experience organizing your event. Too bad you donÂt live here or IÂd draft you : ) We do have answers for some things you bring up, but others I hadnÂt even thought of yet. Size and advertising Traditionally, our neighborhood (like most historic neighborhoods in our city) has had an annual or bi-annual home tour to raise funds. In the past, these have attracted from less than 1,000 to over 6,000 people. The best year for our neighborhood was when we had significant media coverage in the local paper and magazine, related to a major neighborhood re-development project. Most years, these events do not draw media coverage because they are frequent and the offerings donÂt change much from year to year. In recent years, attendance has dropped off, even though advertising has increased. We speculate this is because the neighborhood has matured, there are less renovations going on, and the freshness is gone. We would continue paid advertising for an event like this, but IÂm hopeful that a gardening event geared towards urban and small gardens would draw the media coverage weÂve been lacking recently. Downtown living is a hot topic, and putting the urban/small garden angle on it is something no one in our city has done yet. I like the idea of making contact with various groups that might be interested in this type of eventÂ.targeted marketing to gardeners (pinning down the downtown/small space crowd is a bit more nebulous, though we do have 2 monthly newspapers specifically for downtown dwellers). When are you going to hold the event? Good question. IÂm planning on getting input from the local businesses that might see increased business as a result of this event. IÂd guess that late spring/early summer would be best from that perspective, because IÂd think that the earlier in the gardening season this is held, the more business theyÂre likely to get from attendees. OTOH, an event in late summer/early fall would more likely have better weather and neighborhood gardens would probably be looking better than early in the season. Can you maybe add a 'farmer's market' or produce sharing of some sort? ThatÂs an idea we should throw into the mix. There are a number of farmers markets throughout our city in the summer, but mixing something into the food vendor area might work. Parking/Potties/Food WeÂve dealt with the parking and food vendors before for our home tours. Parking is on the street, and we set up food vendors in one of the parks. WeÂve not had to set up port a potties with the home toursÂ.there have always been some public buildings included on the tour where restrooms are available. IÂm hoping we can work with some of these public buildings as locations for the presentations; that would also take care of the restrooms. 501c3 Yes, our neighborhood has a 501c3 foundation which we utilize for fundraising, etc, so...

My daughter's fiance bought a house with white rock mulch. After several years of fall leaves and debri being deposited on it it wasn't looking so clean and pristine lol. This spring, when I visited, my daughter begged me to help them plan a nicer looking garden. I did so but could not convince them to remove the big square of landscape timbers that surrounds a tree they planted last year. At least the big square was already there and the tree was planted at the correct depth. They removed all the rocks and replaced them with mulch so it's an improvement. I made several plant suggestions but I haven't been back since to see how it all turned out. I wonder if your neighbors have considered all the gunk that will be deposited in their nice white bed since the downspout is set up to dump directly into it? Yuck. I think a tall trellis fence to divide the properties would be very fitting. If you could then continue down the property line with a white picket fence and continue across the front with it, you would have a really nice backdrop for a cottage style garden. You could then just take out grass along the fence as you needed to until ultimately the space is all filled in with flowers. Should be very pretty. rnbwgrl, I live in Keya Paha county in the north central part of the "Flat" state lol. That's funny, I've never heard it called that before. I will say that having driven I-80 across Iowa many times, that state isn't exactly full of movement. LOL. Our ranch is right on the Keya Paha river and north of the Niobrara river. It's actually big rolling hills here and the hills on each side of the rivers are pine and E. red cedar covered so very woodsey terrain over all. About 75 miles west of here...it's flat again. They call this area outlaw alley because so many of the old gunslingers and outlaws hung out in these hills back in the day. I was born here and then moved to Omaha when I was little where I grew up and spent 27 years of marriage. At the end of my marriage, I came home. Best decision I ever made. I did live in C.B. for a couple years during my marriage. Sort of a misfit of a town IMO. My ex had family in Des Moines so I have been there a few times but it's been many years now since I've visited. MeMo