First of all, I'm not a landscaping pro or any type of expert, just a homeowner who likes maps and plans. So I'm wondering about the actual usable amount of space in your front yard. I see a distance of 24'6" (maybe 24'8"?) from the front of the lot to the corner of the window on the right. Is the front property line the location of the curb? Will there be a sidewalk along the street in front of the house? Will it be right along the street, or will there be a parking strip (grass area) between the street and sidewalk? One of the lines in the front yard is labelled "ACHD easement." That's your county's Highway Division. It's 8' from the front property line, so it's 16'6" from the front of the house. My county doesn't allow trees -- or even tallish shrubs -- in the easement, so ask before you plant. The other line -- 12' from the property line, so only 12' 6" from the corner of the window on the right -- is the utility easement. That's another area where planting large shrubs or trees might be restricted, if power lines/pipes are underground. And hopefully they won't put any unsightly boxes in front of the house. But in any case, there may be significantly less space in front of the house where you're free to landscape as you wish, than you expect. Boise's snowfall averages only 19" per year, but you might want to ask the neighbors how much of the street snow will be dumped in your yard.

G'Day! For lawn info, i'd start by reading past postings at: http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/lawns/ the lawn care forum. i noticed you list tractors as a favorite topic. Depending on what land you have besides the lawn, you may want to use a tractor-pulled mower, like we use for our pastures. If so, draw the edges of your garden beds and such to suit the curves your tractor and mower can fit. If not, with under an acre to cut, and flat at that, you really could do it with a reel mower - the old fasioned mowers you used to be able to hire a local teenager to do the lawn with for $10--. You'll probably end up with a power mower and an edger/weedeater/weedwhip. If you can, edge your flower beds and such with bricks laid side by side, not end to end; this will provide a wide enough margine you can mow right along and not worry about massacaring the "floppage" (overhanging part of plants.) You may also want to wrap the base of small trees with trunk tape before you accidently scar the bark. A ring of mulch provides a nice mowing-safety margin for trees too, but don't build a "volcano;" mulch should be only 1/2" next to the trunch base, thickening to 1" a foot away and 2" two foot away. Mulch too thick right be the trunck can rot the trunck bark above the root line (trunk and root barks are very different), and shelters wee critters than nibble bark in winter. 'Fraid i know nothing about caring for lawns exept to be sure to get the roots of any weeds. A lot of folk around here disapprove of chemlawn. All that stuff that gets sprayed goes in to the water table, and we who don't live in town pump it back up from our wells. Not so great for folk or our livestock. A perfect lawn is a very unnatural environment. Sure you don't want ot rip the whole thing up and make it all into garden? To each his own. You've got a couple month left to plan. Have fun! -vlad Here is a link that might be useful: GardenWeb Lawn Care Forum

Ahh yes, the math skills are really horrible (I don't know if this is just an epidemic in WV or if the whole US is calculator spoiled). I'll never forget one time I was at McDonald's and my total came to something like $4.96 and I gave her a $5...she messed up the register and was completely lost as to how much to give me back. I said "it's just 4 cents, don't worry about it"...but she said "well, then my register will be off"...so I waited for her to go get her supervisor who proceeded to use a calculator to figure up my change. I was completely dumbfounded. I'm not sure those were the exact amounts..but it was very simple math...so sad. The bad thing is I've seen several examples similar to this. For a short while while I was in college, I worked at Shoney's. I ended up quitting after about a month or so because the supervisor kept forcing me to work over when I had exams yo study for and things I really needed to get home to...but when I went in to quit, the manager came into the office and tried to talk me out of it because they had been having trouble finding people who can count back change! Amazing to me.

Welcome, Dee, Becky and Lisa, glad you could join us! I spent the day dealing with my groundhog problem. He has cleared my back flower bed, and the hole he is digging is going to undermine my shed. Time for solutions! I called Animal Control and they gave me a list of people who will come to your home and trap the critter. Great. I called the first one and he wanted to charge me $100 to trap my groundhog. I'm serious. AND, I guess as an added bonus, he said they would also take it away. NO?! Really!? And I was thinking the critter would live in that trap in my backyard forever. Sorry for the sarcasm, but come on. In any event, a friend of a friend is, hopefully, coming over sometime this week to trap the groundhog AND take him away, free of charge. This guy has already trapped 13, yes, 13 groundhogs at his home/yard this year. This wasn't the most encouraging news I've had recently. Hey, on a more postive note: The first swap for FOTESS will be posted Saturday! Are ya ready!!? Shirley!