Thanks for your participation NYwoodsman. It is always great to read differing opinions and viewpoints. However, you are mistaken if you believe many of us are going to disagree with your statement: "What you wind up with is a mindless collection of incongruent plants that makes no aesthetic sense." That is exactly what, we too, wish to avoid. Being an indigenous plant enthusiast myself, I have learned to rely upon these plants. However, I have also come to learn that many people inadvertently do a disservice to the native plants they promote. The question for me is not whether to use them but rather, How can I best use them? Where most enthusiasts fail from a design perspective (which effectively and ardently promotes the plant group you love) is recognizing the power of "capturing the essence". Think about some of those little moments in nature that stopped you in your tracks. Are not these the things that captured your heart and steal your emotions? Something like stumbling upon an unexpectedly large patch of bluebells during a hike in a remote area creates joy for even those who have never planted a native. There is absolutely nothing wrong with "capturing this highlight" and introducing its essence into your native back yard. I have expounded on this concept at great length in the past and need not repeat myself ad nauseum. Just consider that native plantings can be so much more with inclusion of a little thoughtful design. IronBelly

Ginger, thanks for your interesting questions. Sort of farm--During my growing-up years when my father ran it (I was born in '51), it was basically a hog and grain farm. He grew lots of corn for the pigs and to sell, plus some oats, but started growing soybeans in the sixties as a cash crop as well. We had a few chickens early on, but found it more convenient to buy at the store. (I think even store-bought chicken used to taste better back then.) My mother was a city girl from 200 miles away and hadn't inherited the gardening genes of her father. She did like to grow yellow wax beans and freeze them, which we all enjoyed. During my father's growing up it was much more diversified. At present, having retained about a third of the acreage, 122 acres, our renter/manager/neighbor specializes in grain--soybeans and corn. Organic veggies?--I've gradually gone to organic and permacultural gardening for fun. I really love fruit, and since my husband and I can be on the farm only three months of the year (we teach up in Alaska and fly our Cessna down every year), time is at a premium. Therefore, perennial edibles are my priority, with maybe a few yellow wax beans. So I've planted fruit trees and small-fruit shrubs, asparagus, rhubarb, hardneck garlic (not really perennial, of course), garlic chives, and (my namesake) Egyptian onions, plus many other kinds of herbs. All of these are just jumbled together for a permacultureal type of system, though I do plant them in such a way as to enhance the ability to mow around them. In the east garden, for instance, I planted over the years three rows of fruit trees, plus another row of currants, rhubarb, and grapes. In between the trees, I planted within the rows all kinds of herbaceaous plants, for organic companion reasons, but also so that I could just run the mower all the way up and down without having to go around each individual tree. (I initially scoffed at the by-word "easy to mow around," but soon incorporated it into my criteria of good gardening once I actually started mowing.) Rainbow garden-- Blue: blue flax Darker blue: Veronica austriaca 'Crater Lake Blue' Annual blue salvia that either survive or reseed every year, c.r.n. (can't remember name)--Victoria? Purple: annual reseeding larkpur, Consolida ambigua Veronica spicata 'Blue Peter' Veronica 'Sunny Border Blue' Salvia X Superba 'Blue Hill' Salvia 'Superba Blue Queen' Red: Ground cover rose 'Red Ribbons' (Jackson & Perkins) Dianthus, 'Flashing Light' and 'Brilliant' Orange: Asclepias tuberosa Gaillardia, 'Goblin' and a bigger c.r.n. Gold: Coreopsis, tall c.r.n. Rudbeckia fulgida 'Goldsturm' Yellow: Achillea filipendula Coreopsis 'Zagreb' Green: Juniper horizontalis 'Plumosa Youngstown' Euphorbia cyparissias (am phasing out as juniper grows) Historical restoration--As I view pictures that go all the way back to 1900, I see many changes, including the location of fences, the coming and going of huge trees, and in the ground itself as I describe before with the double terracing. And yet there are still a couple of barns and a corn crib that endure. Times change and new personalities come in. My blood link to the past allows me to both have some knowledge of the past, as well as the capability of gathing more knowledge from pictures, written material, and friends and neighbors whose relationships with the family go back for generations. I cherish this, and often repeat plantings to mimic the past. Yet I can't put it all back and I don't feel the need. As long as I have the family blood, the farm is still evolving as the family farm. I try to do it justice, and though I enjoy it tremendously myself, I'm really only borrowing it from the next generation, whether it goes to my nieces (we're child-free) or whether it changes over to a whole new set of genes. Please check out the gallery again as I will soon have some more pictures in it. Egyptianonion

CamG, I really like he latest rendition with only one gable. I agree with using taller windows. Will you have divided lites? I think this is similar to what virgilcarter is suggesting: We used 8x8 . The columns were slightly off the ground so we put in trim pieces. I would reconsider the stone on the front of the porch. I didn't realize this needed to be specified in advance. We didn't have a brick or stone ledge so it was too late by the time I decided to put stone. Maybe just put in the stone ledge just in case you change your mind.

The easiest way to post pictures is to put them up on one of the free photo galleries on the web, and then enter the URL in the box below the follow-up form. There are other ways, but this is really easiest. Make sure that you make your gallery publicly available; the gallery documentation should tell you how to do that. What kind of budget and time frame are you thinking of? If you want something cheap and quick, you'll get different recommendations than if you want something that you can spend, say, $200 every two months for two years on. Are you or your spouse handy? Would you consider, for example, new framing for your windows and doors, or is that a lot more complicated than you want? Give us an idea of the kind of improvement that you're interested in. Draping grapevine over your front door is always a good look, and you can add artificial flowers and leaves according to the season. Now's the time to forage for wild-growing vines. You'll have to drape them while they're pliable over something that will give them the right shape while they dry. I found that making a chicken-wire frame for the arch over the door makes that task easier, makes mounting easier and gives the dry vine some strength in higher winds. If you don't want to harvest wild grapevines, you can buy grapevine garland here and here. A Google search will turn up many more possibilities.