Wow, Blackie-you're a natural with that camera! I love grasses-what's that with the yellow flowers at the front of the hedge bed? That bed looks like a natural to fill in with some spring bulbs, especially that would play off the yellow of the forsythia. Your monarda looks great. I've tried a few, but they just don't seem happy in my garden. Nice maple! How much sun does that area get? I'm a fan of Heuchera 'Amber Waves'. Not everyone likes it, but the colors would be great with the maple leaves. The backside of the heuchera leaves is a lighter shade than that of the leaves on your tree. That shot of Smokey ought to be on a cat calendar! Brenda PS-the first set of pictures opened just fine for me...and I've got slow dial-up and usually have trouble with pics loading-go figure!

We have GIANT MUTANT DEER..they eat my daffodils, even my iris when they come up in the spring. The deer ring our doorbell and run away, laughing. They ate 15 roses down to stumps and then TP'd our yard. In short, they are mean. I tried planting garlic around some roses. They just left that alone and proceeded to defoliate the bushes. So now I take one egg, some milk, chopped garlic and mix in a watering can and pour it over my bushes and fruit trees. I have been doing this religiously for the past few weeks and so far it is working....

it seems.. that your only problem.. is that you want it all done yesterday ... how about his ... TAKE A WEEK OFF ... drag your lawnchair around ... with an adult beverage of your choice ... and decide where you need to go in the future ... what bed to make this fall.. so you wont have to do it in spring ... what plants need to be moved in fall ... gardening does NOT have to be all about hard work .. take some time to enjoy and plan ... and when your butt starts getting motivated again.. go at it a bit slower ... work smart.. not hard ... trying to do.. too much.. all at once.. can very easily become overwhelming ... take timeouts.. to enjoy that which has been accomplished.. sooner or later ... you will get itchy to get back out there .. and if you did nothing more this season ... so be it.. you have already done a great amount ... relish your accomplishments.. rather than fester in your expectations of failure .... the ONLY person you have allegedly let down is you .. i am positive everyone else is mystified with what you have accomplished ... declare the garden job done.. and find some other excuse to avoid housecleaning ... lol .. how about residing the house while you are at it ... maybe a new roof ... maybe a garden on the roof??? .. so many options to avoid housework ... good luck ken ps: time to join a garden club.. and go visit other local gardens .... for more inspiration ...

Helen I think you're right about my mystery flowers being Spring Beauty. Thank you! If I planted that, I've forgotten. I planted Jane five years ago and I'd guess that it's 6 to 8 feet tall now and still not blooming heavy enough to call it showy. It gets some competition from a Tulip tree so it might be doing better by now if it was planted in a better spot. I'm ashamed - I finally broke down and bought the Canon that has a 50x zoom lol. I got a good deal on it. Best Buy matches some dot com prices now. Amazon is one and they had the lowest price so I showed them that price at the register at Best Buy and they matched it. I also had reward zone bucks to take off of the price plus another 20 for applying for a BB charge card back before Christmas so it got the price down to 340. That's more than I intended to spend but I still had some Santa cash and I "needed" a good camera. : ) It seems to be working great for macro or zooming either one, but if the camera is zoomed all the way out, it's difficult to keep the subject centered. If you move the camera even a little, you've lost sight of it. I haven't messed around with macro much yet but this one is of buds on my Mohawk viburnum and the lens was very close. I need to try it out on some bugs or butterflies.