I'd suggest you consider conifers, and look especially into junipers as you are on the sunny sides. I can't decide whether the pebbles will aggravate the heat on the plants through reflection or help to cool the soil for them. Likely a bit of both. The upright junipers include many interesting ones such as gold cone, a contorted form, and several blue ones like Wichita Blue, Blue Arrow, etc. Other than this, spruces may also like the conditions; again there are many ornamental varieties that can make for a very interesting display. Ask over on the Conifers forum for places to shop in your area. BUT to tell you the truth, many people jump to the conclusion that breaking up a wall requires planting AT the wall. It doesn't, depending on how much yard you have adjacent to the wall. If you have space, plant a tree or some deciduous shrubbery out there, and in many cases, from many angles, it softens the house wall just as well AND keeps the mess and habitat away from the house. Deciduous shrubs will grow out from any wall reaching for the light, which is why I wouldn't recommend them for a wall planting. KarinL

Tom: Let me give you a few more of my thoughts/observations about growing Norway spruce stands. As for provenance/variability. In addition to the general differences in the adaptation of various strains/provenances to different parts of the country, another thing I have observed in the 15 or so substantial NS stands I have seen and collected seed from in the nearby MD, WV, VA, and PA area, there is also a distinct variation in the amount of variability from tree to tree in each stand. In some stands, the trees look more like each other than in others. As luck would have it, in my own two older stands I see more variation than I have seen in any of the others I have visited--I have no idea why this should be so. The trees were planted between 1962 and 1966. But the variation is such that I can sit now and picture in my mind dozens and dozens of individual trees and the color and weeping character of their foliage, branching angles, bark color. I have quite a few special favorites. This may seem strange, but you have to understand that in addition to walking through my NS stands very often, I have pruned each individual tree in several phases up to at least 25 feet, and in some cases well over 30 feet. Anyway, one of the things I especially like about NS is this variability--with the possible exception of red maple, I have never seen another species of tree like it. For me, the effect in a forest stand of NS is glorious. Next, if you plant 6 X 6, or even 8 X 8, in about 12 to 15 years what you will have is a really dense "thicket" of NS trunks and branches that you will not be able to walk through. If at that point you want to thin and prune, you will need loping shears just to work your way into the stand, unless you have long arms, a good pruning saw, and dont mind getting scratched. I would recommend not doing anything for about 30 years, and then if you prune and thin, do it yourself by hand and leave all the wood to compost the soil and be taken up by the remaining trees. But if for aesthetic reasons you want to do some early pruning and thinning, that can do no harm. But for the long term magnificence of the forest, you dont really need to do anything. Norway spruce trees express dominance as well or better than any conifer I know. A couple years ago I called Professor Edwin White at SUNY Syracuse with a few questions that followed up on the studies he directed a few years before, and in the conversation I marveled about the stand at Glady, WV, which I had visited again shortly before--marveled at the strength and beauty of the trees that had continued to express dominance since I first saw the stand almost 20 years before. And he said he was not surprised that I was so impressed, and that if one wants to have the most magnificent stand of NS, and white pine for that matter, there was no need to do any thinning (or pruning) at all. He emphasized that both species expressed dominance over the long run very efficiently. My own observations make me think that NS is even better than white pine in this regard, but I dont have any data--just my informal observations--to back that up. One of the studies that Professor White directed was a site factors study. I will look that up for you and give you the reference--it was published in the SAF Northern Journal of Applied Forestry. If you are near the U of WI you can find it there (they do have a school of forestry?), but if you call SUNY Syracuse I would guess they would send you a copy. I am not sure how useful this would be to you in selecting a site for your planting, but I found the study fascinating. It is an observational rather than an experimental study, so it is not easy to understand exactly what it all means in practical silvicultural terms. But I can suggest that NS will grow well in soils with a pH above 4.8, and maybe 4.4 or a bit lower, but pH above 5 with some good amount of magnesium is probably best. I have soils in the 4.8 range and I experimented by broadcasting some high mag crushed limestone around a few groups of trees. No dramatic results, but perhaps some improvement--the kind of measurements really needed to determine exactly what the effects have been, were too difficult for me to do with any accuracy. One surprising finding of the study was that slope position and aspect were apparently unrelated to NS growth. For many species the lower east and north facing slopes are best. When I remarked about this to Professor White, he said that since I am so much further south, that may not be true for NS grown here. Anyway--interesting! Well, if I can think of anything else, I will come back and post it. In the meantime I will look up the site factors study and give the specific reference. Oh, I just thought--about larch. There is a professor at SUNY Syracuse who has dome some work with larch--I cant remember his name now, and he told me that larch does best where the soil is fairly deep--he gave me a number like an "A" and "B" horizon (or rooting zone) of at least 18 inches, or something like that. But then he added that if growing on a slope they can do well with less soil depth. I dont know if you have any slopes on your new land. Anyway, for what its worth --Spruce

If the rooms are open to each other, it would be good if they could relate in some way...easiest way is with color. So, say you put a deeper green in the LR, then you may want to use a lighter shade of green in the DR. Or you can do it by carrying the same accent colors in both rooms against different backgrounds. Or you can create a single color scheme and vary the weight of the same colors in each room. You might scroll through the design seeds threads here...in there, a few times I've used a color inspiration and showed how it can be used to keep adjacent rooms united in color without going boring. When it comes to style, I'm looser than many around here. I think the public spaces should be more consistent and then the private spaces, like bedrooms, can be more independent. But even with that, I'm pretty eclectic. What I wouldn't do is make the dining room totally victorian and the living room totally colonial. But if you have rooms that have different hints or accents from different periods, that's fine. Most important is that they be what you enjoy living with and that the rooms function for you. The key rule that you can never break is scale. It doesn't matter what style it is, if the contents are too small or too large, it won't work. Second in my mind is balance...a room should feel balanced, not with all the large pieces up against one wall or an accent color in only one side of the room. Here is a link that might be useful: Using design seeds

Igloochic, I can't understand the reaction you are having to this thread or the things you are saying to me. There has clearly been a nerve hit touched on here for you and on that level I'm sorry. Some of the thread probably DOES sound or even IS preachy. When people discuss important and polarizing subjects particularly in print where the nuance of real conversation is lost I think things do sound very black and white. I wanted to respond very specifically to your statements to try and avoid any confusion. "I often put myself in the position of the people being bashed and think....how would it feel to know that my kd was posting on an open forum that I missed the boat on my kitchen. That is where I came from when responding to this thread. I feel really awful for those clients who probably love their three ovens. I guess I'm not implying so much that you aren't a good designer, but that what you said wasn't very nice and did a disservice to your clients. Can you see how it might knock the silly little smiles right off of their faces?" My clients already KNOW that I would have traded the plumbing for the third oven. I certainly wouldn't have said such a thing on a public forum if it was a secret. I was not saying or even implying that their choice was a bad choice. I was using it as an example of two people having a different measure of 90%. It is also true that the client, a personal friend, frequents this board and I fully expect it to make her laugh her ass off. I'll be deeply disappointed if she doesn't notice it and be forced to point it out to her. She has herself been insisting I point it out when she posts her final kitchen pictures. This particular client has never worn a "silly little smile" and I was then and now applauding her choices. "Your analyzation of the cost of the tv was frankly so ridiculous it was self serving to arrive at the conclusion you wanted to arrive at. A room must be built, the price raised a couple of grand, replacement in three years etc. You didn't want the tv, end of story. Your husband wanted the tv in the existing space. The excess in that case was not in the wanting so much as in the analysis of the person who didn't want the silly thing." I think here you may have misunderstood the analysis I was running. I was not comparing my husbands dream tv analysis with anything. I was making a comparison against what laxsupermom's family had against what I rated in my 90%. I used it to point out that what might very well be in the 90% of a different life style is not so for me, trying to emphasize that each of us will draw a different line in the sand. (at least one number WAS off in the calculations. My husband pointed out after he read the post that often we have to spend 25 dollars instead of 16 on tickets to a 3D movie) So my numbers, if you had percieved me to be talking about my husband wanting a tv would have seemed outrageous. But I think applying those numbers to an 82" tv in the media room Lax mentioned are not bad for having been done off the cuff. Beyond that I can only tell you my personality. I am a stark raving lunatic and if I was against the TV I would just SAY I was against the tv. Seriously. My husband would mention it and instead of talking it out I'd just laugh my ass of and tell him to keep dreaming. "The thread then further goes into how grand and wonderful everyone is for not giving into their wants....I am glorious in my self denial etc aside from a few who chimed in to say your thought process on the issue was possibly flawed. Then the standard ugly American bashing moves straight to how green we are. It's just not a very pretty read I guess and I shouldn't have responded late. Sorry about that." I don't disagree with you that there is certainly some negative things implied (or even said!) when people talk about cutting back on financial expense. Theres an implication that those who don't should be viewed in a negative light. Similarly, a thread about buying whatever you want may cast those who chose to buy less as putting hard workers out of jobs or being weirdos. (and indeed, one person did say that he felt it was an american issue. But then several chimed in that they weren't sure that it was an american issue. So I'm not sure if I read the thread as a total being that way) Either way, I have no control over posts that are not my own and work very hard to keep my posts polite and straight forward. There is no reason to have animosity towards me for posts that are not mine. What I think is happening with you and I may just be that I didn't explain well that the issue was never about the tv. The tv my husband asked for would have equated to almost 4 months of salary and was never seriously on the table. He knew it, I knew it. But since I didn't think of this thread as about that tv (and wanting to be slightly more discreet in discussing my finances) I didn't make that clear the way I should have. (also, I didn't make it clear that I am a tech geek. I would happily have a new huge tv every month if I could work it into my 90%) Then, when I used that larger tv as a comparison I did it in a confusing way so that several people believed I was talking about my DH's when I was not. If I could go back I would change the percentage to 98%. Perhaps that would have more fully shown that I am totally absolutely supportive of getting things simply because they bring you joy. I cannot support the idea that if you want something then affordability is the only criteria but I really wasn't trying to post about that. For me, this post was more about looking at the real costs behind the items before making the purchase and understanding that because the neighbors 90% includes a boat doesn't mean your 90% has to be the same. Indeed, your 90% may be a yacht. I hope I've more fully explained what I was trying to say and maybe more importantly put across that I wasn't bashing my client. Just trying to pick a choice that we'd all be familiar with. This is now officially the longest post I've ever done on GW. Just so you know.