Congrats on growing beautiful children! Don't feel guilty about allocating some $$ of the budget to keep your home happy and functioning. When I had my son the Csection went badly and I couldn't function in the yard for almost a year. The only plus side was that house was on a in-town lot and a half with sand-based soil. It wasn't so horrible to get going again as the soil was so loose and the property was small. But, it did break my heart to look out and see weeds, weeds, weeds. When we moved to our current property it was is sorry shape. Nothing had been done with the 2-acre property other than cut the open lawn areas for at least a 4 year period! (When I say "cut the open areas" I mean the cutting a riding mower can do around trees, ditches, etc). The original owner had circled the house with plantings of green hosta, forsythia, and purple iris, with double white peonies alongside the steps. The forsythia had overgrown the windows of the house, the gutter had come off the high end of the house and allowed erosion along the steps (there were no peonies to see at the time...only a waist-deep gully), and knee high grass was present from the landscape timber edger across the 3' "bed" to the house. An orchard of over 20 fruit trees that had not been pruned, maintained (or even mowed) for 4 years. No sidewalks. Just a vast green weed expanse of 2 acres with an orchard of fruit "bushes" inside a meadow and a house with basically no windows as the forsythia covered them. I hired a guy to pull out all of the forsythia, repair the deck, put in a gravel sidewalk, spray-kill the grass in my intended new flower bed, and bring in two tandem truck loads of mulch. I put my efforts into terrace gardening along the steps to get rid of the gully and reclaiming the hostas, irises, and fruit trees. Imagine my surprise when beautiful, fragrant peonies came up in my new terraced rock garden. Apparently peony roots will withstand a lot of abuse as there didn't seem to be anything but brick-solid eroded gully there before! The point of this long story: if its a big project you have to budget between your time, your priorities, and your $$$. We are ALL doing that on a regular basis. Who are we trying to impress??? OURSELVES!!! Feel good at the end of the day! Have time for your babies! Create a beautiful and peaceful haven for your family. Some people can put more of their own time and muscle behind it; others will need to put more of their $$ into a project because its beyond their physical abilities. Its all good if you can enjoy the results at the end of the day...and don't forget to sit down in that nice yard with your loved ones and ENJOY IT (there's where I miss a priority from time to time). A "before" shot, sort of, I had trimmed the forsythia off the windows, put the gutter up, and shoveled the gully wash out dirt off the driveway. An "after" shot:

Ciao wayblinkfaster, So where are you? Canada is a big country, you know. I think you went too far in killing your extra plants. Next time, you might consider donating them to food banks, churches, or getting involved in a gardening group and participating in some plant swaps. I grow lots of extra tomato plants and I always find homes for them. Community gardens are also desperate for plants most days. Cheers and good for you on your successes, Julianna

Okay, I'm out of town until Monday but will try to post pics when I get back. I've tried to post here only once and it was....a struggle. But maybe I now just use the image file upload bar? Feel free to give direction. In the meantime, the Tapmaster that comes with hot/warm/cold is relatively new I think. I believe it was model 1756. I got it from conservastore but it wasn't on their website and my builder got it through them but not from the online site - he just called I think. Link is below. The walnut floors are 4" wide and I do think that wood is gorgeous. We got mostly heartwood and very little sapwood and used a medium color stain to even it out but not block the graining. It came out great. Here is a link that might be useful: tapmaster 1756

I have 2 x Abraham Derby, 2 x Golden Celebration (unfortunately they both suffer badly from black spot in my garden), 2 x Sharifa Asma, 3 x Desdemona (purchased bare root a few weeks ago and currently in pots waiting for me to dig their permanent homes, 7 x St. Swithun (I bought one as a climber in 2012 and, when I cut it back two years ago I tried my hand at taking cuttings of some of the pruned wood - about 20 cuttings all grew). I gave away most of them but kept 6, which I'm growing as shrubs - so far, so good. I also have more than 100 Queen of Sweden, which I grow as a hedge around the lawn. Fortunately, the Queen of Sweden is very healthy and trouble free for me and I do love her flowers, which also last well as a cut flower and look great when they go in a vase with English lavender. I think that in future I'm going to concentrate more on old Tea Roses as they seem to be much more disease free for me and, thankfully, don't need pruning.