I was up very late last night contemplating this very thing. I was visiting Moosey's website. Spent hours there looking over her old garden areas and how she changed them over the years. I am sending Mary an email to talk to her about it. I love her gardens and she and I garden alike and think alike about gardening and animals, so I know she will have some good ideas that fits my lifestyle, if she will. I made a list of some shrubs she grows that I want to get. I want to open back up my patio area with a spans of lawn and perennials and shrubs around the sides and against the house. I want a central path through an arch or several rose covered arches or perhaps a pergola to the back yard and do away with all the crisscross paths. It is too much! I want to replace the pickets and wire edgers with the farm-style post'n'rail type fences. Too much of a pain to trim around those danged wires. The string snags the wires, yanks them out and twists them and sometimes breaks them. Sick of those things. Also my trees are growing well now, so want to reposition the perennials now that they are getting big. I may have to just force myself to make drawings of what I want and play with that, and list what needs to be moved and where. The immediate backyard is the target. It is just too congested! Ugh! The rest will be okay where it is now. I just don't know if I (myself) can dig out some of those big shrubs in the way and move them to the side areas or something. I may have to take the Maddox to them. I don't know where I want to move them, but I do know I want that area opened back up the way it was originally and more people friendly. It will be easier for me to take care of it too. Moving those big shrubs is my main obstacle. After that, it won't be a problem. Right now while we are having all this rain would seem like a good time to move them and get my lawn growing. I am going to plant St. Augustine, not that awful Bermuda crap. I have St. Augustine growing on the south side of the house. I love it. I had it for lawn when I lived in Louisiana. Isn't it funny how so many of us are thinking of making some big changes in their garden right now? ~Annie

This is from the FAQ. I was going to delete the line about every swap being cold and rainy, but the forecast as of today is for rain on Friday night. We'll see. Appropriate dress may be tank top and flip flops. chrisMD *********************************************************** **More Free Advice: Helpful Hints for the Day of the Swap** 1. Sign in with the swap organizer. If you need to find someone, check the sign-in list to see if they've arrived. 2. Wear a nametag. Put your Gardenweb name on it, and your real name if you want. Remember - you know what you look like but we don't, and our mental image of you is usually quite different from reality. 3. Spouses, significant others, children and other pets should also get a nametag "John, DH of ChrisMD" or whatever so we know who they belong to. That's also how we know who they aren't. 4. Dress appropriately. Every Maryland swap (fall and spring) has been rainy, grey and cold. You'll be outdoors for 3 hours so wear clothes that can get muddy and waterproof shoes. Eat lots of brownies to keep your body temperature up. Dress the spouses, significant others, children and other pets too so you don't have to listen to "Can we leave now?" for three hours. Feed them lots of brownies - chocolate is a sedative. 5. Bring a piece of paper and label your car with your Gardenweb name. We usually park nose-in and have the trunks open so you can just tape the car's "name-tag" to the top of the open trunk. This sounds really dumb but believe me it helps tremendously in sorting out who is who. 6. Label your plants, either ahead of time, or bring markers to the swap for those who don't play 'name that plant' too well. Cynthia keeps plant labels by the PC and as she agrees to prearranged trades, marks one side of the label with the plant name and the other side with the recipient's name. It also makes it easier for her to sort everything the night before the swap. Clean Popsicle sticks are cheap and make good labels. 7. If you have special trades, presort out each recipient's goodies as you fill your car. ChrisMD puts each recipient's together in a paper grocery bag, labels the bag with the Gardenweb name of the recipient, and leaves it next to her car. That way, people can find her car and find their bag of goodies even if she is not standing right there. This also saves carrying plants from car to car looking for trading partners. When you have a lot of trades, this is critical to YOUR enjoyment of the swap. 8. Remember, a lot of times trading is not directly one-to-one. A gives to B who gives to C who gives to A. There's plenty to go around. There's going to be a LOT of stuff coming to the swap and it's all going to have to leave with someone. The only traders who leave disappointed are the ones who insisted on one-to-one even-steven trades. 9. If you're a newbie and you see something that's new to you, ask what it is. We're happy to share our experience, and our hostas and our physostegias and our rudbeckias.... 10. Please come at the opening time if possible and expect to stay for a while. You'll need that long if you plan on talking to EVERYONE. Plus, we have all those brownie breaks. 11. Free for all is after lunch. Anything not traded or gifted before lunch must be taken home by anyone who even looks at it. If you ask a question, you get two. 12. If the police show up (they usually do) do not offer them Cleome. Offer them brownies. 13. Remember to HAVE A GREAT TIME!

Agree it is normal and common - especially in really wet soil and with all the wood chips in your mix. All the wood chips may end up being more of a problem than the toadstools could be because the leaves on your plants look a bit yellow and anemic. That indicates insufficient nutrients are available to them. Wood chips can use up the nitrogen in their decomposing process so you may want to consider feeding your plants. Dave

If you are using a contract written by a builder or a design-builder you will be at a disadvantage and a lawyer is essential. But, if you are bidding the project and can include a contract form in the bid documents and you don't have an architect to help with the contract, It can be difficult to find a lawyer familiar with single family construction contracts and hiring a lawyer to write one can be unnecessarily expensive and he/she is likely to follow the AIA format anyway so I recommend printing an AIA "sample" form, filling it out and taking it to a lawyer. If he/she doesn't have a subscription to the AIA forms you can buy an editable copy for $100. If you are not using an architect, you you can cross out, delete or modify any reference to an architect. Last year I recommended an AIA single family house contract form for when the designer is a home builder. Here are all of AIA single family contract forms: https://aiacontracts.com/search/all/all?curpage=1&utm_term=&utm_campaign=Surety%20-%20Performance%20Max&utm_source=adwords&utm_medium=ppc&hsa_acc=8579796829&hsa_cam=20190385363&hsa_grp=&hsa_ad=&hsa_src=x&hsa_tgt=&hsa_kw=&hsa_mt=&hsa_net=adwords&hsa_ver=3&gclid=CjwKCAjwkeqkBhAnEiwA5U-uM5YvJKBdlaLvfGZR8_W6qqq451ZXNOlr12Feimn1A9aVElCaMWjPNhoCBQ4QAvD_BwE Here is a sample sheet. https://aiacontracts.com/search/all/all?curpage=1&utm_term=&utm_campaign=Surety%20-%20Performance%20Max&utm_source=adwords&utm_medium=ppc&hsa_acc=8579796829&hsa_cam=20190385363&hsa_grp=&hsa_ad=&hsa_src=x&hsa_tgt=&hsa_kw=&hsa_mt=&hsa_net=adwords&hsa_ver=3&gclid=CjwKCAjwkeqkBhAnEiwA5U-uM5YvJKBdlaLvfGZR8_W6qqq451ZXNOlr12Feimn1A9aVElCaMWjPNhoCBQ4QAvD_BwE