Thank you all for such thought-provoking comments. They are really helping me work through this undertaking! Sandy, all of your info is appreciated, and I especially liked your comments, "Your land will actually speak to you" and "The right plant will present itself to you when you're at a nursery sometime." I know these are true, and I need to not be in such a hurry! Your spacing and color info is very helpful, but I have a couple more questions (for greenhaven, also). I've seen lots of pictures of perennials mixed in with roses, or a clematis twining through a rose bush. Doesn't this make it harder to care for and prune the roses, and doesn't it limit the air circulation? I have 3 Carefree Wonders that look gorgeous by themselves. Can I plant them closer together since they are the same rose? I have 3 Quietness (very lovely pale pink) and 3 Winnipeg Parks (a pretty red that looks beautiful with the Quietness). I have other contrasting and/or blending of 3 or 4 single bushes that look good together IMO. Is it possible to have multiple focal point groups, separated by low evergreens or green perennials in the space I have and have it look good? I really like informal gardens more than formal, especially with our setting. I've seen lots of pictures of parts of gardens with roses, or formal rose gardens, but I've not seen any plans showing predominantly rose gardens, interplanted with other perennials. Any ideas where I could look at such plans for roses? greenhaven, DH nixed the manure, so I'll put peat in the planting hole in the 12" of top soil. Thanks for the specific info! sunnyrose, thanks for the heads up on the Roundup. I'll check into it further. alisande, thanks for the pic of the large spruce. This, with greenhavens warning, motivates me to go back out and more carefully look where the sun will fall when our spruce is mature. We got our estimate for building a wall today, so we've decided to bite the bullet and do it. One more thing, any opinions on whether I should have structures for my climbing roses mentioned earlier? Or do you think I'll be ok trying them as very large shrubs in the more open background? Anne

Hi Rose, it's the living room. We thought about opening that wall and switching the living and dining rooms, but it was a bit too complicated dealing with 3 doorways that would be affected. (The house was built as a funeral home and there are doorways everywhere downstairs. In the dining room there are 7!) Yes, on the space to the sink side. The new space is 6 feet plus what we gain from building over or around the stack and chase. The hoosier plus lower drawers would leave us with a couple of feet or so for a rack for leashes, jackets. There would be 40 to 42" inches of uppers beginning around the dishwasher for glassware and stuff to hide. Except for the one to the right and then over the fridge, we're thinking we'd go with open shelves otherwise. With so many doors (4 exterior) we've been trying to reroute everyday traffic to one of the other doors.

Here are a couple more...one has a peninsula instead of an island (Amy2202 #2) and the other has a flattened island w/the shallow cabinets along the LR wall that you really seem to want (Amy2202 #3). Both move the oven stack to the office wall and have a corner cabinet Message Center across from the office door and next to the garage entrance. They also both eliminate the tiny pantry. #2 puts a dish hutch in that cubby area extended into kitchen area by 24". It also has 42" of pantry cabinets on the refrigerator wall (the other side of the MW). #3, instead, recesses the MW into that cubby along with a counter and base cabinet below the MW. It also has a pantry on the refrigerator wall, but it's now 45" wide. I like #3 best except it doesn't have any nearby landing space for the refrigerator and pantry. BTW...there is plenty of room b/w the office wall cabinets and the Pantry/Refrigerator...42+ inches. One other thing in #3....I took a 21-inch portion of the cabinets on the LR wall and made it a utility cabinet for brooms, mops, sweepers, etc....unless you already have a place for them. Then I put a similar looking cabinet the same width on the DR end to balance it out. Then, perhaps put glass-fronted upper doors in the cabinets b/w them. +++ Amy2202 #2 +++ +++ Amy2202 #3 +++

I am not sure where the walled in heater is that you are referring too. Attached would be a nice layout for your space. Ref= Refrigerator R=Range DW= Dishwasher C=rolling cart