mike .. next to your name.. way above.. can you add a city to the zone 6-7 info ... oak.. oak.. oak ... if zone appropriate ... i will track you down and punch you in the arm if you mess around with poplar or maple ... i simply dont want to listen to you complain for the next decade about them .. trust me ... and i will yell... ABSOLUTELY NO TREE MARKETED AS FAST GROWING ... they serve a purpose.. if properly sited.. but the purpose has nothing to do with growing a garden, UNDER THEM .... pines .. are not an issue.. EXCEPT.. under mature pines.. its a desert ... watering would be an issue .... spruce.. the same ... its all about your soil ... and how water moves thru it.. and then.. add trees on top of that.. to form the equation as to what is hosta conducive ... location.. soil type.. perk test results ... etc .. then we can talk about good trees ... ken

Boy if only we COULD put a dome over our area, wouldn't that be great? This is Sunday morning and it's all gray and rumbling out again. Everything is saturated. There's rain forecast for the next five days in varying percentages. My new iris bed is sitting there nearly dug, but now so wet, I can't get out there and finish it. I don't know how much longer I can hold the Cherry Red Dianthus seedlings in the milk jug before they have to be individually potted up, and I was SO hoping I could skip that step and put them right in the ground as the border for the iris bed. But I can't do that till I get it all dug, 'cause I'm wanting to till in some amendments while there's nothing planted there and I didn't want to make DH drag out the tiller for only half the bed. I see now that I should have, at least I could plant in the rain. Yesterday I took some Miracle-Gro and scattered it in standing water puddles. I don't want to add any more water to the ground, and everything looks so bedraggled right now. One of my pepper containers plugged up it's drainage hole so I lost that one. Oklahoma gardening: three steps forward, two back. Susan, do call your sister as I hear they're getting this too. I'm sure those folks up in Coffeyville and Independence must be worried they're going to get a repeat of last year. Dawn, the wedding sounds wonderful! I'm glad it turned out so well. Don't you just love it when two really fantastic young people meet and fall in love! Think of the great kids they'll have! I remember a poster that used to be on the wall at a place where I worked for a short time. It was titled "50 Ways to Have a Happy Life". Number one on the list was "Marry well." Mick, my son does lawn mowing as a second job and he is having a time keeping all his customers happy! Yesterday he mowed all day, dragged in around suppertime and said he hadn't even stopped to eat. I had runzas in the oven and he ate three and took a couple home! Carol, I do think it is amazing how different the amounts of rainfall are in certain areas. One time we had a neighborhood garage sale and we all prayed the rain would hold off. There was rain on the other side of town but we got nary a drop! And I remember when I was a child, we'd travel from the little town of Copan (in OK near the KS border) to Iola and Chanute KS where my grandparents lived, about every two weeks. It wasn't uncommon for us to drive through a sheet of rain. You could see it ahead of you on the road just like Mick described, and then before you knew it, you'd be through it and we'd look back and watch it. There for awhile, it seemed like every time we went to KS we got hailed on somewhere, or chased home by a storm! Well, it's starting to pour again and there's thunder and lightning so I'd better post this before the electricity goes off!

Docmom, I have sent you some messages via Houzz messaging system. I assume you have not received them? I am going to try again. If you don’t get anything, please see if you have emails enabled. Thanks! To see your messages while on Houzz (rather than / or in addition to email) go to the upper right corner. Click on "your Houzz". In the drop down menu, click "your Ideabooks". On a header on that page, you will see "Messages". Click on that and you will see any messages in your Inbox. There's a menu at left for Sent messages and Received messages. It took me a while to find this! ;)

Tom, there is so much land around me it's crazy. However, finding the places to inspire, that's another story. Wheeler National is a mile away, along with the Tennessee River, but it is so massive and the areas that are accessible to me, they are migratory bird sanctuary or fishing spots along the way. I like deciduous hollies with an evergreen backdrop, which is why I have winterberries and possumhaw. Most of the things I have, it's just a start to the "less lawn" concept I'm after. I plan to have over story, mid story, then the shrubs, etc for the two thirds on each side. Center, I planned on butterfly/hummer/pollinators, but no natural inspiration. Ed has me thinking about the back edge again, as well. I did want to have a sort of screen, to block neighbor's and break the south wind, but also give the birds a place to have distance and cover when necessary. I started checking again and found the Brodie Silicicolas I have, the reliable sources are saying 6-8 feet with a very upright habit. Maybe I can find an area to integrate them in a natural looking, functional way, dunno. I'm just trying to get this started properly before winter sets in here. Not expecting to have finished beds, etc., nor do I have enough plants to do so. I have all that space in the center (everything is coming out), just don't want to lose the whole pollinator area I wanted. There are no bad suggestions, but I guess most folks don't plant these type of areas, so it's hard for them to suggest.