Careful there Baditude. Some trees do require greater spacing, depending of variety, rootstock, how you train your tree, etc. Investigate and choose wisely and hopefully you will only have to plant once, and not be forced into transplanted as many of us have. btw, my orchard is on about one acre or slightly more and I have about 150 trees. Many commercial orchards are going to the tall spindle system, hitting upwards of 1000 trees and acre. Spacing is 3 ft between trees or less, and 14 ft between rows or less. That's a lot of upkeep too.....Also, HC are a great apple, good luck.

You've done a ton of work! It looks great. What a transformation. I agree with Keesha that the left corner needs more oomph to complement your lovely stone entry. Is that one of your weigelas planted there? If so, that will eventually fill that space nicely, but a climber would be a good temporary addition. Another suggestion would be to use wider shutters, if the budget allows. If you don't like all the hostas in front, you might try moving some of them under the evergreen. The continuity throughout the two beds would be an added bonus. My hostas are planted with Coral bells and it looks nice. Also Brunnera goes nicely with hosta. Mine tolerant relatively dry conditions once established. I would really focus on the two beds you want to join. You will be amazed how much your new plantings will grow in the next year or two and then you can divide and move things around as you please. In the meantime, you'll have built the structure and bones of your garden. I know it's hard to be patient. I'm living in a new to me house too, and I want everything done now! But I'm just blown away by how much my plantings from last year have taken off. It's giving me all new ideas about where to move things to and shape new beds. One thing I am glad I did was to visit the nursery often last year. I was kicking myself at the time for all those impulsive purchases of lovely blooming things I really didn't need. But now, I'm patting myself on the back. It's making for a lovely succession of bloom. As one thing fades, another is coming in to its glory. So that worked well. Even though I ignored all the common wisdom about having a plan and limiting my choices. :-) Enjoy creating your garden - you're off to a lovely start!

My guess for #1 is Lakeside Hoola Hoop. Its been on my list to buy so I've looked at a number of pictures. Now I'm going back to read the rest of this thread. (long one) Beverly OK now I read it. Nice house and plenty of room to garden. I like the front of your house, nicely landscaped. Good luck with the goutweed. It took me nearly 5 years to remove landscaping rock from around my house and I still have some under the yew in the front yard. However it was worth it and surprisingly satisfying. Removing the goutweed may be similarly satisfying. Happy digging Beverly This post was edited by BeverlyMN on Sat, Jun 15, 13 at 8:42

I have never had a problem with the algie not growing in the ponds. Might be the age of the plastic. I do not know. I have tons in the big pond. The smaller white one is a newer liner as grandson "helped" move sandstone rocks and made a hole in the last one. LOL! I am totally adicted to water ponds, features I have tons of containers of water "pots" as hubby calls them all over the yard. SIL is ready to dig the next pond once the heat breaks for us.