We are pushing the limits of good sense here in north Texas planting out our tomato transplants last Sunday. (Surely these plants will be 'blessed' because we put them in on Sunday????) They certainly enjoyed the multi-inch rain on Tuesday and the mild temps since. One of our first projects was to re-do the small water feature near the back porch. The old one developed a leak and had to be replaced. The new container is in and the fountain is splashing merrily. It needs the rocks fussed with and fresh mulch, but it sounds and looks good. We've scraped up the old mulch path in the white garden....ummmmmmm good mulch. And replaced with fresh pine bark nuggets. The swing in that garden got stripped and repainted as well. Today I put in a few white petunias and the area looks so good. We sprayed our home-made bunny-be-gone on some potential munchies....now the new growth on the daylilies will last longer than a day. Every time I go outside I want to take photos of the red tulips in the front yard. I've already taken photos, but the flowers are so bright and fresh, I want to take more. LOL See the tulips on my blog, linked below. Happy spring everyone! Here is a link that might be useful: Creative Soul

Thanks for the tour mctavish, your pics and posts are some of my favourites. I can definitely relate to this: > I never have enough room and tend to always plant too close together knowing I’ll have to ‘fix’ it someday. Not so much to the daily watering + automatic watering though! Maybe in another property/life. My family used to have a cottage on the Shuswap, lots of fond memories from around there. I also recall how hot and dry it can be!

Hi Sweet Annie: I have been wondering how you are doing! I'm also thinking about major reconstruction of my veggie beds commencing very soon. We had a tornado here and it knocked down ALL of my trees. Not quite financially prepared to overhaul the entire yard, I can at least start on the front yard vegetable gardens on my own. The old still stands, but the maple tree that was shading them is now gone and the stump to be ground out Friday afternoon. That will double my vegetable garden space! I need to dis-assemble some temporary raised flower beds (but I don't have a home for those plants yet as the tornado wiped everything else out and it will take a lot of work to reconstruct the gardens in the rest of the property), then I can pretty much take out all the edging and re-work it, fill everything in with fine ground mulch (or lots of ground trees!!) and begin building my new raised beds. I want to be very creative with the layout of these beds as they are in the front yard, so I'm going to think on it tonight. Sometimes my best garden design ideas come in my sleep!! Our old chain link fence got smashed. Not so bad, I hated it anyway. We are getting new picket fencing as soon as possible. I won't have any pergolas or structures over the garden for awhile. We need so much work done I can't afford that for quite some time!! Good to hear of your plans! girlgroupgirl

You're trying to take advantage of a feature that already exists. No one would really know if this is the best place in your yard to put a fire pit, or if it's going to end up looking like one of those monster features that are out of place. In order to know, one would do a master plan of the whole back yard, considering all the future development, and see how it shakes out. Whether the location is in good proximity to other use areas will play a part in determining its success. What exists in the yard at the present, could actually be fairly easily reconfigured. Also, it's perimeter circle looks haphazardly done. I wouldn't let the existence of this control where I put a firepit. It would be better to pick the best place, create the best structure, and heal the lawn back into sod if it turns out this is not the best place. As far as the plan itself, the 24" paths are too tight. Given that the plan includes confinement, 48" would be a better minimum path width.I don't know what kind of fire source you'll be using and its size, but one complaint that recurs is when people cannot adjust their position relative to the fire in order to be at a comfortable temperature. Consider a simpler design that doesn't involve raised beds and built in seating, but is merely a patio with the firepit and that there is movable seating available. It would be a whole lot more versatile ... and probably less offensive to a future home buyer should the house ever be sold. I'm not sure that combining a veggie growing area with a firepit is a great idea. It may work, but may also be limiting, cumbersome and possibly unappealing to future buyers. It might be better to have a separate garden for veggies somewhere else in the yard.