Afew quick random thoughts: Ink, I'm glad you didn't stay away. I think the never-ending winter has us all testy. Inner Garden Yes, it is title if you will. Parts of childhood such as wind in a cottonwood tree, the grass (it wasn't really a "lawn") to play crochet or fetch with the dog; memories of special places/vacations; a semi-hidden nook to read or just observe the world go by, memories of special people (Effie's irises etc). Its past, present, and hope for the future, practical and whimsical all tangled up together. As such I expect my inner garden to continue to evolve over the years. And adapt to the visions of others who share my life. For me the garden is intensely personal. I look at the pretty landscapes installed in some yards and that is what they are, installations. That isn't a bad thing. Sometimes they are very functonal and attractive but they are impersonal. My garden will never be featured in a magazine spread. It isn't meant to be. Its mine. Phlox on a humid summer evening and wind crinkling the cottonwood leaves. If only I can incorporate a gooseberry bush because we had them when I was very young and lived in England. Maria

Hey Mike, Ouch! Did you really need to be so harsh on me, guy? It's somewhat of a relief you weren't here from the beginning. I asked for the constructive criticism before & during the job. It's not really all that 'constructive' when you focus on telling someone all the things he or she did not do, pointing out all the things done wrong and throw out a bunch of subjective, opinionated insults in my opinion, but never offer any ideas or solutions. I hope you don't waste any of your time in this forum insulting people and calling it constructive. If your intention is really to be helpful and not hurtful, focus more on the ideas & suggestions to correct the errors and omit the meaningless comments such as 'The design is too timid' or 'A professional would show some clout' and instead share some ideas or make suggestions as the other professionals here have done. It would serve you well to read some of their posts so that you can gain a better understanding of how to be constructive with your criticism. I was a teacher for a little over 12 years before I burned out & went back to school to study horticulture. I've always really loved gardening & filling empty spaces with lots of plants, but after this job, I realized, at the age of 40, it wasn't something I could do for the next 20 years or more. (notice how I figured that out all on my own) (>‿◠)✌ So I actually pursued another dream I had for quite some time and started my own dog walking & pet sitting business. I didn't just put an ad out there on craigslist and call myself a small business owner either. I have a registered business in SF, pay my taxes & carry insurance. I celebrate 1 year in business this January! Anyway, I just wanted to share that because if I still was working as a gardener, I would have woken up this morning, read your comment, & felt like a complete failure on my birthday! Here is a link that might be useful: Golden Gate Dog Walking

Sit down because I'm jumping right into some science. This is for your husband to help understand why the bridge idea is not going to help you. Normal soil has an open pore structure that allows air and water to pass through it. Inside this structure lives 10s of thousands of species of beneficial microbes which thrive on the open pore structure. These microbes are Mother Nature's invention. As it turns out the species of microbes living in swampy land are different from those living in dryish land (lawns). When you allow standing water to stand for several days, that cuts off the air flow to the beneficial microbes and their populations begin to decrease. If this happens enough, normal grass will thin out and stop growing. They will be replaced by swamp grasses like nutgrass and some others. So it is important to keep the water from pooling on your lawn. Back to the issue... If your community has an ordinance that says homeowners must drain all water from their own property and not allow it to cross over onto a neighbor's land, then all you should have to do is call your city code compliance officers and make them deal with it. If you live in the savage west, then you might have to do it yourself. Talk to your neighbors and ask them to berm up their land at the fence to keep the water on their side. Since they already dug the ditch, they are unlikely to bend to your wishes. So when that doesn't work, berm up your side of the fence and push their water back onto their property (see how they like having standing pools of water!!). Six inches of berm would normally be plenty. Planting a lawn in the spring is not the best idea, but if you really have to you have to. If you can afford sod, then that should be better, but if you were planning to seed, I would not spend a lot on seed for a spring installation. What will happen is all that new grass will find itself competing with crabgrass which also sprouts in the spring. Your grass seed will be less hardy than the crabgrass and will thin out in the summer heat. It is not uncommon to have a full crabgrass lawn by July. It is much better to seed new grass in the fall because crabgrass seed is not sprouting then. It also gives the new grass all winter and spring to develop heat tolerant roots. Now a word on forum etiquette. This is not your thread. The original poster had a problem with soil structure. Your problem is neighborhood drainage. You should have opened a new topic so people who want to help you don't have to read through someone else's problem from last year - which is really not your problem. I also suspect you will need some advice on planting your lawn (spring? or fall - either one). Now is the time to ask, so post a new topic! When you ask about planting a new lawn, please mention specifically where you live. The zone system is not good for helping with lawns, so give a town or zip code. And if you want more help on the neighborhood drainage issue, I would still post a new topic with your new questions. This forum seems to have a lot of opinions about neighbors '-)

Hi Betsy! Glad to "see" you again too! How goes the new job? And Sheryl, great job on the Christmas gift bought! You're doing better than I am this year...for some reason, I am not even a little bit organized as far as gifts go this year! I have to mail a wedding present for a cousin who got married at Christmas (will do that today), and I'm working on a baby afghan for another cousin who is pregnant...hopefully I can get that mailed to her *before* the baby comes, as it was supposed to be a shower gift! Obviously, I really need to be back here on a regular basis, so you guys can help me stay organized! ;-) Julie, congrats on the sprouting flowers! My hubby won't let me do any more outside planting until he gets the yard spruced up, so it will probably be awhile. ;-)I bet things growing in your basement really make you "itchy" to get out and start planting stuff!! Married life is great...it's really great to be working toward the same long-term goals with someone else (and sharing the bills too!). LOL My husband is wonderful - but I knew that long before I married him, so I expected no less. That's the nice thing about having dated for so long before we got married - we knew each other very well, good and bad, so we both knew what to expect. He's still my best friend, not just my hubby, and I don't see that changing anytime soon. ;-) My dogs are doing well - getting older, unfortunately. Vashti (my doberman) is 8 this year, which is the average life span for her breed. I can tell that old age is starting to get to her a bit, so we'll see. My collie is getting older as well - we don't know her exact age, but she was older when I got her. We'll probably lose both of the "girls" within a couple of years, sadly. But we'll enjoy them for as long as we can. :-) Gabriel (my dobe/lab x) is doing well too - he's around 6 or 7 now, so still in his "prime". He started having seizures a few years ago, and still has them, but otherwise is healthy. All the dogs *love* the huge yard we have now, and more room in the house to spread out. We were pretty crammed into my first house, and they've all adjusted quite well. It helps that we moved into a neighborhood where everyone likes/has dogs - my collie isn't such a problem when she has to go out and "bark" good morning to everyone. ;-) As for the new house - uh...slowly but surely is our motto. :-) We worked pretty hard on the basement this winter, getting my husband's pool room all decorated and organized with bookshelves and such. We still have a couple more shelves to buy, and then it will be pretty much done. We've also been creating a "movie room" adjacent to the pool room - painting and moving furniture in and such. It's starting to look really great too! My hubby reorganized our storage room, and it works much better now for all the holiday/seasonal decorations I have - that was another project this winter. So we've been steadily working away. Our next project is working on the lawn, and getting a storage shed built in the back yard, so we can clean his mom's stuff out of our garage (long story), and get that space back for our cars, and a wood-working area for him. So lots of plans and lots to do...but well worth the work. As for the main floor - organization is badly needed in a few areas. My office is a mess - I've been working on it, but it needs a lot of help. My closet needs "help" as well...and we have to figure out a better way of dealing with clothes at night. But we'll get it all organized eventually. If that wasn't long-winded enough, here's my "report" for the rest of the weekend: - I showed my husband the shopping lists I created on my PDA. One for the main grocery store, one for costco, one for "miscellaneous" and one for the pet store. So he knows where to add things to the list that he needs - and he made use of that yesterday to add his things to the list. He also added his things to the calendar, and where I had "What's for dinner" reminders on the calendar every day, he made a note with his requests. LOL - He saw that "Vaccuum" was on the list for yesterday, so while I was out running errands, he vaccuumed for me, which was helpful. - I also scheduled an alarm to go off at 9:00pm every night to remind me to work out. Hopefully that will get me moving again. The one bad thing about marriage is that I've gained about 20 lbs since the wedding...time to get back to working out again and get healthy, for both of us! - I looked for a bill-organizer, but couldn't find one, so will have to order that online. - Got some more laundry done, but not put away. - Made my bed this morning. - Cleaned the kitchen last night...not as well as it should have been, but getting closer. - Got 2 of my aquariums cleaned - will clean the goldfish tank tonight So I got some little things done...a good start. And I followed my morning routine this morning, and was much more organized. I know what's for dinner tonight, and I have my list of "to do's" for my lunch break all ready to go. So I'm starting out organized this week - I just hope I can keep it up! :-)