Such memories. Our first purchased house looked so much like your pictures. Dear lassie you have a sun trap and should do wonders with any plant which loves heat. I see you know about raised beds so that is good. We now live out in rural Victoria County and it's a lot of land to handle. I had a vision of what I wanted to do about 18 years ago and it's just starting to happen. The native trees take many years to fill out. Good for you. I can envision your corn far above that board fence.Out here in the rhubarb it's not safe to plant anything tender until Victoria Day and real tender things like squash must wait until early June. My newbie this year will be Heritage tomatoes to accompany my other 5 varieties. Tabla Rasa...oohhh..Ron Squared

lol, this is not part of an assignment... and even if it was, I have compiled enough on my own to have more than enough ideas. This is a no-credit, online class that I am taking to learn new things. Just wondering what you've all had success with, I know many of you here are zone 5ers. Some of my ideas are: baptisia, ligularia, goatsbeard, turtlehead, japanese forest grass, angelina sedum, jack frost brunnera, phlox jeanna, new england aster, shade clematis, serviceberry, variegated dogwood, [more variegated foliage ideas?], willows, smokebush, [more dark purple shrub ideas?], evergreens with yellow shades in the fall, flowering small trees, hydrangea (lacecap variety), ninebark... I have MANY other plants I could add to this list but these are the ones that I have a particular fondness of that I do not yet have in my landscape. And I'm well aware not all of these will work together, really all I'm trying to do is get a list of plants I like, then go from there. camp - I appreciate your comments, I don't plan to use everyone's suggestions, this is really just a way for me to get more plant ideas on paper, I will do my own research and see if they would work in my landscape. If they will, I may use them, I may not - depends on how the whole thing looks together in my head. But here's this if it helps: I have 3/4 of an acre with sun/shade all over the map - dark shade, light shade, bright sun, part sun, etc... soil for the most part is clay but I have amended many planting areas with compost and will continue to amend and time goes on... I like a full look, cottage style I guess, informal. I am always in the garden so I don't mind having to trim things, deadhead, water, whatever. I realize my style is a little high maintenance but I am OK with that for now.

thanks so much for admitting that you have an S5...mine does that sometimes too and it will NOT focus for some reason. I used it at a family reunion and the first 20 pix were all fuzzy. But everyone was moving so fast, well, the photo ops were happening fast really. But if I just would've stopped, pulled back a bit til things cleared. No, not me, snap, snap. Now if that happens, I back off and wait till the zoom adjusts, or whatever... Maybe I rushed it. So try taking yours again so we can see what you have there!

A very good closeup of the seed head is often necessary to get a proper grass ID. Also cleaning out the dead blades in order to see the actual living plant would help. There are thousands of different grass species. This is just a guess. Look at Tridens flavus, purpletop grass. It's native, and a host plant for Skipper Butterflies.