ali, what about putting an arbor in and growing a honeysuckle up it? From the edge and in from the driveway to the tree, I'd edge out the grass from that area and curve slightly to the end of the concrete pad in front of your home, the patio area. All the way to the end. Let's give you some curb appeal ;) Put the middle of the arbor in front of the edge of the concrete pad where the car is sitting, about 3 feet in. From the middle of the arbor to the drive and then going up your house, you could create a path that would curve over to the sidewalk and to the front door. For right now, using newspapers and a 5 gallon bucket filled with water, cover up all grass with layers of newspapers you've plunged into the water. Lay them down, overlapping as you go. I typically use about 10 layers of paper. The more, the better. If you can create your path first, either using stepping stones or gravel, lay down something like visqueen and lay the stepping stones or the gravel over to create the path. Remove the grass where the path will be so that nobody trips over stepping stones or gravel. Take out a V shape where you're going into the lawn from driveway to tree and up and over to the end of your home. Remove the dirt and the grass from the V, so that you've got a drop off of sorts and lay your wet newspaper to curve down into the area where the dirt is. Cover the area up with mulch or mushroom compost if you can get your hands on some, except for the path area. By next year, the newspaper will start to decompose and the grass will be dead, but it adds to the organic matter of newspaper and the dead grass. Worm heaven. From now and thru winter, study up on various perennials and possibly a few shrubs that produce berries for our other feathered friends. Next year, push back the mulch or mushroom compost and dig holes to plant. There should be enough room to the right of the path up to your front door, to add in a shrub. Then the other shrubs could go in front of the poles, under planted and going out to the edge with perennials. I prefer natives. They're adapted to our weather, our soil, they make up our ecosystem. Find a list of native plants for your area, and research those plants as to what hummingbirds like and also which ones make seed that other birds will like to eat on. The native plants won't require dead heading, don't need pruned or cut back so they look better....I just prefer them over all. Now an iris in there isn't going to hurt anything ;)...or a peony....both left by the previous owner that I decided to leave and a friend of mine from TN also gave me a beautiful iris that is sentimental to me. But again, those 2 are easy plants. Hummingbirds will love to sit and rest a spell on shrubs you provide and give you a closer look at their beauty. Too much?? Where do you live? Zone 5, but where? lovefornature, you're doing a wonderful job! It's people like you who join GW that make it an enjoyable site to visit. If you like butterflies and are interested in attracting some of them to come to your yard, you could plant a Aristolochia tomentosa or Aristolochia durior. Another plant I love that I don't know draws anything in, but blooms in late summer, is Clematis virginiana. Another neat native clematis is Clematis glaucophylla. I also answered the e-mail you sent, I hope you got it.

Thanks, tmac and bellarosa! tmac, I have been out of town for the last few days, and I just came back home. On my way back from the airport, I stopped by Lowe's and found the 1 gallon pot of F&E RED! I thought that I must come and post this for you, only to see this post! I guess Lowe's has a better deal then, at $14.99! However, I was hoping to get a larger plant though... sigh... let me wait a little bit... bellarosa - please post a pic! I am dying to see that red bloom!

Hi dplantlady. I apologize for my preciseness: the species is Lobelia siphilitica (from syphilis, because in ancient time this plant was used against this disease). I'm familiar with white form of flowers. There is a constant rate of mutations on pigments (on the DNA traits responsible for colour of flowers, and any other gene). Many flower species have white variants (mutations for the colour are more frequent than others) and the question could be: why all flowers are not white? There are more reasons, but one very important is that pollinators pollinize preferentially coloured flowers. Thanks, pollinators! About your Lobelia, I know other species: L. erinus, L. cardinalis.., generally they are put in Campanulaceae family; I observed on Platycodon grandiflorum (same family) what you observed. Of course it is nice, and I agree it's amazing, but you must consider that normally by sexual generation there is genetic mixing: the significance of sexual reproduction (in plants by seed) is just this. In order to have a pure white line probably you sholud isolate with veil tulle your flowers. I'm curious to follow your experiments. Ugo

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