YES! We are in Folsom. Good to see another local person here. I'm going to make the entire area between the house and driveway a garden. The soil is not pure sand, just mostly sand. I transplanted all the plants in the pic last year when we moved in. They are doing great in this soil. I have irrigation tubing running through the area because the plants tend to dry out fast. I'm probably going to add topsoil to this area. We have a dump truck, I'm just waiting for DH to get a load of topsoil. I've decided to add a wide, arched gateway just past the stone walkway. The top of the arch and the top of the gate will form a large circle. I'm going to put a bench at the rear side next to the driveway. There will be a narrow walkway from the gateway, winding to the bench in the back. I really need suggestions on "fill in" plants that will add color all year long. Thanks, we love the house. We moved it from Covington 3 years ago. I demolished the inside and renovated it to keep with the antique style of the house. It was supposedly built pre-Civil War. I moved all my plants and trees from our Covington house.

Try posting this in the Landscape Design forum. You'll get better help there.

If you want both the variegated dogwood and the willow, you don't have to put both in that bed; you could put one set in another part of the yard. The variegation makes the plants stand out from quite a distance, and IMO it may overwhelm the bed to have both. I like to use variegation to spice up a garden rather than as the main ingredient. However, it's really up to you to decide what appeals to you - you could do a mockup with proportionately sized images to get a feel. Or you could try similar plants that are a bit more subtle. There are a couple other shrubby dogwoods that are about the same size as Ivory Halo. Cornus sanguinea 'Midwinter Fire' has leaves that are green but turn a glowing gold in the fall, and the winter stems are gold at the bottom but get redder toward the top. Not too attention-getting in the summer, but really glorious in fall and winter. There is also one with red winter twigs and green and gold variegation called Hedgerow Gold, but you might have to order that since I've only seen that at mail order nurseries. As far as I can tell, all of them, including Ivory Halo, can get to 6', so give them that much room. Nursery tags frequently give shrub sizes at 5 years, so they may get a bit larger. I usually look them up at the Missouri Botanical Gardens website which IME has accurate size info. I like Marquest's suggestion of holly as a green for winter. Be sure to get one male that is compatible with your females in order to get berries. It doesn't have to be in the same bed, just blooming at the same time as the girls and within bee-flying distance. Sky pencil won't have showy berries, just the green narrow shape. For blue shrub-sized evergreens in the east I found only limited choices that are likely to stay healthy. You could look at eastern junipers of various kinds (but don't get any of the J. scopulorum such as 'Wichita blue' which is a western species that likes dry air and gets diseased in the humid eastern half of the country.) I've seen far too many sickly looking dwarf Alberta spruces to want one in my yard, though there are some that are bluish. You might be able to grow blue atlas cedar - I find the weeping ones to be lovely, though expensive, but it's too cold here for them to survive. If you can find one of the dwarf forms of blue spruce, it may work well. I ended up with 'Fat Albert' which will eventually become tree sized and need to be cut down, but I live in a rural area without a huge amount of nursery choice. You may find something that works better for your area, or you might be able to get osomething ordered for next season if you talk to good nurseries near you. You could also ask on the conifers forum for suggestions since there are some real conifer experts there. I know there are some really interesting white firs (Abies concolor) but I don't know if any stay small, and some forms of Korean fir (Abies koreana) hold their needles so that the silvery underside shows, but I'm not familiar enough with them to know if smaller selections are readily available.

These are roses I planted Back row (left to right) Darcey Bussel PAOK Lady of Shallot (on 8 ft pyramidal obelisk) Jude Obscure Vanessa Bell Desdemona Golden Celebration Spirit of Freedom (on 8 foot pyramidal obelisk) PAOK PAOK Front Row (left to right) Darcey Bussell Boscobel Carding Mill Lady Gardener Desdemona Desdemona Molinix Olivia Fallstaff Red Traviata (ran out of DA- ha ha) This year I am not planting a low hedge in front or companion plants in between. I just want to see what it does in terms of spacing. I started almost everything with bareroot, own root roses. I installed a drip line in the bed that circles around the drip line of each plant. Although not my first choice, I mulched with pinestraw because my neighbor has a ton of pinetrees and the needles end up in my beds anyways. I have found its not worth the fight.