Thanks Kate--I guess I've been very much on the fence about whether they'll tolerate the cold here, will just have to see I think. The flowers look so gorgeous I think I have to try anyway, so I was going to put in 4-5 and see. I'm essentially zone 6 in the backyard, so maybe I'll have success with them if you have. Do you winter protect? My neighbor did lose some HTs from year to year but he planted the bud union above ground and didn't winter protect. My Austins always seem significantly hardier and I was hoping these, although marketed as HTs, were more mixed lineage and would be hardier too. The beds are a bit elevated, which hurts cold-tolerance but helps keep things well-drained. But I can bury the bud unions and throw on some bark mulch or leaves in the fall, which may help. Okay, Peter is officially on the list, and I think I MUST have Liv and Yves Piaget--the flowers look too wonderful to pass up. Every weekend the ground stays workable I keep fixing up the beds to accommodate more roses...so now I have room for another order from Roses Unlimited!

You've gotten some good plant suggestions so far, including to do a mixture, which is usually my preference if the area will be visible. T2D's front slope mixed planting is gorgeous. Perhaps she'll add a photo or two. Vinca should be fully hardy for you since it is for me. However, I find it crawls over my barrier (a 5" deep band of edging material with a row of bricks alongside) and roots in the lawn, so I wouldn't recommend it. This might be a good spot for variegated bishop's weed(Aegopodium), which is normally a pest since it doesn't play well with others, but if you want just one kind of plant, put a barrier around the bed and it should be OK. You could plant bulbs to come up through it. This might be evergreen for you, not sure. Ajuga would work and you could try some of the more resiliant coral bells(Heuchera) I have a rather steep bed in an area behind the house that isn't in our normal traffic pattern that I needed to fill quickly to prevent erosion, and since I had a bunch of the old-fashioned daylilies that I had dug up elsewhere in the garden, I used those. I'm now adding a few shrubs and other hardy perennials that I think will be willing to duke it out with the daylilies. Old-fashioned daylillies aren't evergreen, but they might be something you'd want to throw into a mixed bed as they are fine with full sun and don't need lots of water. Regardless of what you end up planting in the bed, prevention of weeds while your plants get established is really important. You want to kill everything that's currently growing there, whether by smothering it (do a search for lasagna gardening) or by covering it with black plastic for a couple of months or whatever method you choose. After planting, you might want to put down corn gluten which will discourage seeds from germinating and then a heavy layer of mulch on all the bare soil areas both to keep moisture in and prevent light from reaching the weed seeds and bits of roots that are in all soils and will sprout with light. Mulch will also prevent erosion until the soil is covered with plants and make any weeds that do come up easier to pull. Also, install your outer barrier either before you plant or just after since if you delay and grass crawls sideways into the bed, you will battle it forever. Here's a previous thread that might help you out: http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/neweng/msg0317034129496.html Here is a link that might be useful: New England groundcover FAQ

Bizy, are you sure it's gophers? There's a vole that digs into my yard sometimes. I think he's looking for grubs. According to what I've read, they don't eat plants, they just uproot them. This year I've put down some Milky Spore Disease in an effort to kill Japanese Beetle grubs. Hopefully this will solve my vole problem too. Kelly, if I wanted to just shade out things so that I could plant veggies later, I'd plant a cover crop. One year I needed some "green manure" so I just threw handfuls of black-eyed beans that I had in the kitchen out in the new raised bed. There's also alfalfa that's mighty good for the soil. You could also mulch heavily. I got some bales of old hay from a friend this spring. She used to keep cattle on her place but has gotten too frail in the last several years to do it. She probably weighs 100 pounds soaking wet and she used to throw bales of hay around like a man. But anyway her barn has quite a few bales left in it. Some of the wires have broken so it was hard to get it into the truck bed, but I got probably 6 bales. The hay comes apart in layers and you can peel off a layer that is thick enough to lay over the top of the bed and it stays put, even will hold down a good thick layer of leaves. It will shade out most things. This year I'm trying to grow potatoes in mulch, which is what I got the hay bales for. I had a terrible problem with weeds and bermuda in my raised beds till I started mulching. Grass clippings do a good job too, but fresh grass clippings generate a lot of heat. This can be good and bad. Now I only get bermuda in the corners of the beds and I can keep that pulled out fairly easily. I did have to give up trying to grow strawberries, though.

Yes the woody twigs go with the leaves, and the more I find the more I suspect it is one of the ubiquitous thugs here --- wintercreeper (euonymus?), bittersweet, or shrub honeysuckle? I wonder if it was PLANTED by the previous owner (to whom I owe the wisteria, trumpet vine, ivy, winged euonymus, etc etc..) and was once an attractive, managed groundcover?? Am I wrong to be eradicating it?