You did not say how long you have been in GA or where you came here from. Are you actually thinking formal? It didn't seem like it if you bonsaied the boxwoods, they had probably been sheared all their lives which would suggest formal. You may be better off ripping them out, and putting in new ones, even if you are just wanting to renew an old, boring landscape, you could probably do some judicious pruning to rejuvenate new growth. Formal isn't necessary, just because the house is colonial, keeping up sheared and "formal", is a lot of work, not good for the plants, and takes the fun out of it . Creating a habitat does not have to mean wild, overgrown or unkempt. Even so you can still create a beautifully welcoming entry that would compliment the house, really WOW you and the neighbors and give you the gardening pleasure. Learning a bit more about what grows well or too well here, how not to commit crape murder, what is on the invasive species list, and so overused in most yards of those who are not really gardeners, can all help you do it in a "professional way". I have had the best and very rewarding experience with mine, and I have the joy of being the gardener and designer. I have a very formal looking 80' long double level wall in the back, and the habitat in front. It's just the way it turned out, because we needed a retaining wall. I guess it just depends on how you want to use the front, if you want to use the front area and sit out there when ever there is shade, you want to feel connected to the plantings. I have all the books for gardening here, and love to share gardening with anyone. I am mostly free to meet with or go to nurseries or tours if you need a garden buddy. My husband is always bringing people to see my yard, and always tells them, it was all me. Many people have ask for my help or ideas, he wants to hire me out, but I can't do that. I used to be the gardener at our home church, having a group of kids helping me sometimes. That started when someone suggested we,( meaning me) plant some flowers in preparation for my son's wedding, that lasted several years.

Energy_Rater_La, playsand is too soft for rooting. You want the coarse builders sand. If you don't have any of that left over from projects, you can purchase it at a big box home improvement store. Plain old coarse sand with no perlite or vermiculite is just fine with a misting bed. Misters are really easy to find and greatly increase your strike rate as does rooting powder. YOu can usually find misters at big box stores either in the plumbing section, or in the "outdoor living" as a whole setup to keep a patio cool. I think what most landscaping professionals object to in the LF is the lack of homework the poster has done, as well as the lack of ideas of what they want. That's a deadly combination. If you don't know much about gardening, then educate yourself, and if you're not interested, then definately hire a professional to create something for you. It's imposible to help someone who doesn't have any direction or expresses no likes or dislikes, or even any information about the site itself. It's like asking an architect to design your home and he's never met you, doesn't know how many are in your family, whether or not you're into formal gatherings or informal ones, or even what the site looks like. You'd never expect even a hint of what type of house you'd get, because you didn't provide enough information to begin with. It's the same with landscaping. Landscaping is creating the architecture of the exterior of your home. To be helpful, a professional needs to know a lot of things about the site and your family. And, if you don't know enough to be able to give that information, then you don't know enough to be asking for free advice from someone who gets paid to design in the real world. It's a real busman's holiday for landscapers to come into a forum and give advice, and most do it because they love plants and love good designs. Making it hard for them and getting crabby about the responses you get isn't very gracious. No one is saying to bow down and kiss toes, just do your homework and post all of the relevant information in the beginning, and you're more likely to receive a useful response. Asking a question like "What kind of shade plants should I buy in zone 5?" isn't a very useful landscape question. It's more properly a Northern Gardening question and a question of personal preference/taste. Asking, "What type of transition from sun to shade has been successful for you in a formal design?" is a Landscaping question, and can prompt a useful discussion. Asking the right questions, in any context, is the key to getting the right answers.

99.9% of my selection decisions and purchases done via internet. Spent endless hours here. - DRAWERS, DRAWERS, DRAWERS - *big* increase at final budgeting stage - didn't know that things like tapmaster existed, although I've had the need for hands-free for the last 7-8 yrs - ABG options - ABB, which I'm sorry to say I may be a permanent member - little important details like how far from wall to place recessed lighting. I think my GC was impressed. He's usually, 'point to where you want lights placed' - 1 butt vs 2-butt kitchen - zones - drove all parties crazy, including DH, with my perfectionist tendencies. - learned it's okay to move from perfection to 'overall I'm okay with the imperfection'. The 'live with it for a while' mantra - white kitchens are/were all the rage and some considered outdated. I still don't care lol. - got a lot more organizing inserts. Just showed photos to cabinetmaker - I want this! - Oops! For things that were not exactly done as I envisioned due to miscommunication but were not exactly show-stoppers. - the built-in paper towel holder - plugmold strips under upper cabinets. When a discrepancy with contractor over the need not to have any outlets/switches in backsplash area, I'd say - then how do all the GW ppl do it? They are tired of hearing any sentence including the words 'GW' in it.

gardengal, I was just making a joke! The people here on this forum who know me would understand that. Carol, I think finding a buried body part would be something that would be hard to recover from. I'm not saying it would drive me out of gardening, but it sure would be a hard memory to dispose of. I hope you're doing well, and I don't trust my husband with garden chores. He is absolutely banned from the garden with any motorized tool like a chainsaw because he'll somehow manage to find and cut down 'accidentally' the most precious plant I have. He and the garden are both happier if he never steps foot into it. So, I garden, he mows the acres. You know how it goes, and we both are happy. I don't live in an area where people hire landscapers anyhow, and you know I do it all myself here. I live in a grassland where it is an accomplishment if you manage to have neighbors who mow down the tall grasses a time or two a year. (Wildfires do encourage everyone to get started on that mowing sooner or later.) LoneJack, Well, I hadn't thought of it that way. I still think I'd rather buy blood meal and bone meal. Of course, I'm married to a cop and he wouldn't tolerate having a serial killer for a wife anyhow (thought there's bad guys in the police profession too, as in any other, but he's not one of those bad cops), even if it meant an endless supply of blood meal and bone meal. Jacob, Perhaps now everyone knows that particular landscaper's secret for growing bountiful plants. Do you think? I don't think I want to know how long it takes for those particular items to break down into components that plants can take up and use. Seriously, though, the whole thought of this grosses me out. And, you know, being very rural, every now and then we stumble upon old bones that once belonged to something....hopefully that something was a non-human type of animal, and I'm not really overjoyed when that happens, even if it is just the bones of a possum. I always feel like we've disturbed a sleeping spirit. Kim, Thank you. Truly. I am sure she meant no harm. She just didn't know how much we joke and banter back and forth here. I was just trying to brighten up everybody's gray gloomy winter day with a little humorous comment about some grotesque news I'd been following on TV the last couple of days. Amy, I had wondered about the smelly part of the equation myself. Perhaps it would depend on the time of the year. Maybe in parts of the country that are colder than us, consistently, in winter, you might not get that decomposing smell. I know I seldom smell roadkill type odors while walking the dogs down our country roads in winter, but smell them at other times of the year. Usually it is just possums, armadillos, coons or rabbits, but occasionally something larger....and I have to divert and use a different walking route until the worst of the smell is gone. Or, if we're lucky, the vultures clean it right up and the smell is gone in no time. I tell you, when we dreamed of moving to the country and living in the middle of nowhere, it wasn't stinky dead roadkill we were thinking about, but there's plenty of that out here. Moni, That's hysterical about Dale. I'm 99.99% sure he doesn't really think there are dead bodies underneath your beautiful flowers. Nice score on the wood chips. We can't get those out here. The guys generally just leave the chips where they fall when they are cutting along our rural roads and no one complains. Life is just different out here in the sticks (deliberate word choice!). Y'all know, after a couple of months (less for some, but we could substitute four months for others) without rain, I'm thinking the dryness would make things decompose very slowly here at the present time. We need rain or even the DIY landscapers aren't going to be happy. Dawn