I love violets! I too have an over abundance of them but am transplanting them where I want them. Whenever I take out violets from where I don't want them, I go the the hosta border by the drive way - and dig up a dandelion on the outer edge and replace with a violet. Started this last year and this year it's not nearly "done" as the driveway is about 50' (well - 100' but the hostas part is only 50')but about halfway, here and there. It looks really nice this spring. Later in the summer the hostas will be big enough that you can't see the edge. But those pesky dandelions would stick out. With the violets - if anything just the little leaves under the big ones. I'll see how long they can peacefully and attractively coexist....

As long as you have fresh, green grass, the rabbits will go for that first. Rabbits only eat alfalfa pellets when in captivity and they don't have anything fresh to eat. But having said that, once you put the alfalfa pellets down, you should moisten them (not drench them). They will swell up like giant green worms and fall apart. Once they have swollen up, they become hard to eat for any critter except the microbes. If you want to be sure, you can drag a push broom over the swollen pellets and they will fall apart down into the turf. Rabbit poop is an excellent fertilizer! There are no liquid fertilizers for a lawn that are worth anything. Even Medina Hasta Gro is not good. Why? Because a lawn needs pounds and pounds of nitrogen. Liquids can apply fractions of an ounce and nothing more. Liquids are good for what we call micro nutrients. Besides, Medina Hasta Gro is not organic. If you listen to Bob Webster on weekend morning radio (550 AM), he is very organic but does not seem to understand that Hasta Gro is a chemical fertilizer. You can soften your soil now so that it will accept the moisture. Spray 3 ounces per 1,000 square feet of baby shampoo or any clear shampoo. Spray that on your watering day right before you water. Then water a full inch all at once. Measure that inch with tuna or cat food cans. Next week water normally. The following week repeat the shampoo before watering. After the second treatment your soil should be considerably different. It should feel soft under foot right after you water and get hard again during the days before you water again. This takes the place of core aeration. This is not a trick or a gimmick. The only difference between this treatment and what the professionals use is they spend $70 per gallon for their surfactant and you will pay $1 for 15 ounces of Alberto Vo5 or generic baby shampoo at the dollar store. The shampoo will last a long time if you water weekly in the summer and monthly in the cool months. The last time I did it was 2011 and my soil still feels soft when wet. I use an Ortho adjustable hose-end sprayer to spray shampoo. It doesn't matter what adjustment you use if you do it like this. Measure your lawn. Let's say it is 2,000 square feet. That means you'll need 6 ounces of shampoo (that's a minimum by the way). Pour 6 ounces into the sprayer bottle and fill it with water. Then you can use any setting on the sprayer as long as you spray evenly and spray it all out onto the grass. One of the gurus on another forum tried this using 50 ounces per 1,000 square feet every weekend and there were no problems. We know that 3 ounces works and we know that 50 ounces won't hurt anything, so it appears very hard to make a mistake with this.

Thanks Loretta for the info on the lavenders. I don't have a lot of experience with them. I've been pleased with the shape mine are taking, but the scent is a bit off of what I had hoped for. Good advice. Janet, I was reading back through the posts and found the one where you commented about the pampas grass and palms. It just makes you shake your head and wonder what in the world they were thinking, doesn't it? I'll definitely be looking up some of the viburnums that have been mentioned. I can't find the specific post, but someone said they had to yank out their pyracantha because of problems. I spent some time yesterday in looking up the specific cotoneasters that could be used as a replacement if you're looking for a nice show of berries for the birds. I don't know if they'd be suitable for anyone, but I'm tossing in the idea for whatever it's worth. I believe they are also hosts for several butterflies, but don't know which species, and I also need to note that they can attract bees. Some have a slightly crinkly leaf similar to a viburnum, and the big ones often look a lot like a pyracantha until you get close enough to see that they don't have thorns. It's such a huge family to choose from, with a wide range in habit, from low groundcovers to big shrubs. Not all will do well in OK, but a lot of them will. Here are a few that look interesting, if anyone wants to follow them up. One variety or another seems to be happy in such wide variations as PA, Denver, Albuquerque, Georgia and a lot of places in between. Most of them are tough and low maintenance, and many have good fall or winter color. Bullatus is deciduous, up to 12' high and 10' wide. Hardy in zones 5-9 Lacteus takes dry to normal soil and is another big one. Zones 7 - 9. Parneyi is big and can be pruned to tree shape. heat/drought tolerant. Z 7-9 Congestus in small and round, in a fairly tight ball shape. Rockspray or cranberry is low and spreading Salicifolius is also low and wide. 1' high x 5' wide. Z 6-8 The first photo is of a lacteus laden with berries. Next is a bullatus in the fall. I stole the photo off the web but don't know who originally posted it. Pat

Thanks for the update and website.My previous neighbor didn't do any weeding so her Canada thistles were running under the fence to my garden.She moved and it's been better because the newbies are taking better care.Those buckthorns seem to pop all over I'm thinking from birds. I like to get them out when they're still small so you can pull out the whole root.Mulberries are a bit more difficult. I have a big one that grew behind my fence,but I've let it grow because it's on the southern side and totally screens out the neighbors. I think it's a male which means no seeds and I haven't seen any seedlings, even though the mother to it is 2 doors down. I grew arborvitaes there for about 15 years, and they were just getting close to completely screening the neighbors when they all turned brown and died. I'm guessing it was caused by a drought,but I couldn't understand why after 15 years their root systems were not deep enough to weather it.Anyway the mulberry did in about 3 years what I was hoping the arborvitaes would do in 15. I just want to trim the branches back to the fence line to get more sun on the plants growing there.It also helps that I have an old hops vine I somehow managed to confine, growing up into the mulberry and filling in the open spaces.There is also a Chinese Elm so along with the stinging nettle I've almost got the entire urticacean astrid clade,except for Celtis and I have the other member of that clade growing in a safe unnoticeable place.What a fast growing,vigorous,tenacious clade of plants. I'm thinking about shackeling the Elm before it starts setting seeds. I read if you strip about a foot of barkandall the way around and cut out the living wood the tree won't be able to send food to the roots and will die completely without the ability to grow new suckers like cut down elms usually do.Has anyone tried this.Does anybody else have an android phone that likes to change the spelling of latin names or am I going crazy?