We have continued to mulch with finely - not coarse - pine bark mulch. At least I think that is what it's called. It is what is sold by garden centers in our area. My DH buys pick up truck loads of it every summer. We tried buying bags but we needed too many bags and I think it was more expensive that way. We are not changing what we use as mulch. The termites are gone now. According to the person who treated around our house, termites in our area need moisture. Without moisture they die. My original question was not for me - I'm not changing my mulch for anything else. It was for conversation purposes that I was going to use to talk to my neighbor. Too late on that front though - a couple of days ago a truck came and delivered 3 ton of large red stone - not lava rock but larger stone. I've never seen anything like it before. She and her DH had it all spread by that evening. So now, I'm just enjoying the conversation going on here in this thread! Linda PS Thank you for the name of company who bags the Super Fines Soil Conditioner. I will look them up and see where they distribute.

On the north side of an older home near me used to be the most beautiful cedars. The yard had shade from trees, as well, and these small cedars looked good all the time, winter & summer, and didn't seem to be bothered that they maybe saw the sun for an hour at 5 a.m. and another hour at 8 p.m. in the summer. Additionally, the house was empty for a few years and so there was no supplemental watering, care, pruning, etc - they thrived and looked beautiful. I often thought a planting of a brightly coloured hosta in front of those cedars, or a mass planting of variegated goutweed (I know, I know, but it really is a superb plant in certain situations) would have looked stunning. The smaller cedars, a group of 3 of them, were like a small global. There was also a Brandon and another unknown larger one. At another house near me on the north side quite close to the foundation is a dwarf Alberta spruce, planted haphazardly by an inexperienced gardener grass growing right up to the trunk, knocked weekly by the lawnmower, and when it's not shaded by the house, it's shaded by a large Manitoba Maple tree. It's thriving. Go figure.

Okay first, you'll need to pull back those stones. If you don't have a 'hard rake' yet, invest in a good one. If you have one, and it's cheap, work with it until it breaks. If you need one, you will forever appreciate a good tool - get the best one you can afford. For a hard rake, you'll want one with 2 connecting points on the edges of the head (bow rake.) The type where the handle makes a single connection with the rake head is not designed for heavy materials, nor as good for long-term landscaping tasks such as moving stones or leveling beds (the back of a bow rake is perfect for moving a lot of dirt and putting a nice finishing touch on the project.) Get one that is size-appropriate for your height. These choices are what will take much of the drudgery and frustration out of already difficult jobs. Next, since it will be an ongoing project, break it down into stages. I do suggest that when it comes time to buy the plants, you buy all of the same varieties of plants at the same time. They can be like kitchen tiles. If you don't get the same exact shrub, at the same time, colors of both foliage and flowers may not match. Do all of one type at one stage, then later get all the next type, etc... If you have a decent size back yard, and can afford it, buy at least one extra of each shrub and plant it in an out of the way place, or in a spot where it can be moved later. It's not uncommon for a shrub to die, and a small investment ahead of time can save you headaches later if you need to fill something in. If you have so many plantings that this is financially a problem, skip it. Start with the rocks. Get a good size tarp, a wheelbarrow, and a round shovel. Start with pulling back the stones in the areas that will get the same plantings. Place the tarp on an out-of-the-way corner of the lawn and start dumping stones on half the tarp. Use the other half to fold back over to keep them clean and to keep the neighbors happy. This will kill the grass, so if you have extra driveway space, just dump them on the driveway and cover with the tarp. Keep removing more stones as you gather OM (see next paragraph.) Next step is to decide if you are going to buy the soil amendments, or build the soil yourself. Since you expressed a desire to build your own (the vastly cheaper route) begin piling on any organic matter you can. Either start a compost pile, or just start tossing on what OM you can gather on the now stone-free areas of the beds... or both. Some very cheap examples of OM resources are coffee houses (free,) wood chips from the companies that trim trees from power lines (free, or a small tip that makes them both happy to dump it where you need it, and happy to return with more,) kitchen scraps, grass clippings (learn how to compost these properly... a great source of organic matter, but a pain if not used correctly,) city leaf collections (even out of season, some cities use the same place each year and uncollected leaves piled up become what is called leaf mold... great stuff for lightening clay!,) and county dumps (many dumps in Tn. are now separating out all tree products and shredding them. They either give it away free, or sell it at reasonable prices to county residents.) There are many other sources for organic matter, just keep your eyes open and you might be surprised at what becomes available. Let it pile up high, and keep it pulled back a little (or really, just don't let it pile up too high) against any plant you want to keep. As it begins to break down (kept relatively moist, organic matter breaks down fast in Tn. My 8' of long grass and hay mulch on my garden beds broke down to an inch over the summer and was incorporated into the soil by the worms) add more and/or turn it into the soil (next paragraph.) Next you'll want to buy or borrow a 'garden fork'. You can use a shovel, but a good fork works better. At least once a year, and as often as every 1 - 3 months, turn the organic matter into the soil. If roots are in the way, you can keep it on top, or pull out the plantings that you don't want, and just mulch around what you want to keep. The worms will incorporate the organic matter into the clay around established plants, but it's a much slower process. If you did a good job at scrounging OM, you will be ready in a year or 2 for your new plantings. Of course, the longer you wait, the better, but strike a balance. When you dig clay, and turn in OM, the expansion of the volume can be surprising. Clay packs very tightly, once you begin to loosen it, you may quickly find you'll need to pull some out. This will depend on your desired level of the bed. When it comes time to remove the old plants, think about reusing them somewhere else, or use them as trade to get people to help. Lastly, decide what you do want as mulch. Organic mulches will continue to improve the soil and have many benefits. The downside is continual replenishment. Stones are fine, and when used with a weed barrier of some sort, look good and clean. The downsides are weeds that poke through when no weed barrier is used, the soil stays in a 'stasis', well-intentioned landscapers trying to weed eat around, or on top of stones inevitably break a window, and stones don't always stay in place... matching them, and replacing them ain't cheap. Anyway, that should get you started, and if you piddle around a little here and there, you'll be surprised at how fast removing the stones goes. BTW... a bbq gets family and friends more in the mood to help, and if you tackle the entire project in stages, the work for each step is nothing.

If the tree is healthy, it will grow normally, and the growth will be primarily upward, since that's what trees do. With healthy plants, a universal result of pruning is growth returned elsewhere. It is usually in the 50%+ range of the amount that has been removed. Naturally, because of the vast range of plant varieties and local conditions, there is no possible way to predict anyone's exact result. One must act on what is reasonable for the situation one has. One of my little trees with foliage to the ground, was 6' height at the beginning of last year. We had rain and I watered and fertilized it. At the end of the year is was 12' height. This spring, I removed EVERY SINGLE LIMB that existed the previous spring, leaving only what had grown during the latter part of last year. I was limbing it up to half its height in order to stimulate more growth on top, and to allow more light to reach the groundcover growing below it.