It seems we already have the answer to the identity, but I'll give more details anyway. The piece in the photo is about four inches long. I have seen it twice in the wild, both time under the canopy of decidious trees. The leaves are almost leathery. I can't get a picture now, as both locations are miles away and I have to clean up my gardens! Thanks to everyone for their help!

Nothing will ever really "crowd out" weeds. It's best to deal with them first, then plant. Mulching makes it easy to keep up with the weeding by discouraging all but the most persistent (save for creepers, like Bermuda grass or polygonum). What's your Sunset zone? How much frost do you get? How much sun or shade? What's the soil like, and how much do you want to water? 100' isn't really that long - except by our urban standards, LOL - but for interest you want to think in "layers". Many beginning gardeners fail to do this and it's the real dividing line between a garden that looks good all year round and one that seems dull half the year. Having an evergreen groundcover like iberis won't help if what you're missing is top height or medium height plants. It's hard to give you an idea of plants without some indication of how wide an area you're talking about. I've got the typical urban lot with beds chopped up by various paths of concrete, so some of them are 15' wide and some are 12 inches! For instance, here's a 10' wide front yard bed. We built a center berm with concrete blocks to give height to a Meyer lemon standard planted in the middle. In back is a red-flowering leptospermum to "frame" everything. This photo is from mid-December 2007, so there is very little in bloom. Color mostly comes from foliage and fruit. There's a few iris and a euryops, but even the leptospermum in bloom against the house, is fairly subtle: Now, compare that to the gaudy show the garden makes in April and May. This is from last year, so there's a pink Argyranthemum where the yellow-flowered Euryops is now; but otherwise everything's pretty much the same. Note on the far right, towards the corner of the house, we added height with a trellis that gets covered by a coral-flowering passiflora I have to cut back every winter before it takes over the neighbor's nandina and strelitzia. There's also a Tibouchina urvilleana for medium height/evergreen/bloom, and a variegated sweetgum for top layer height (gets to 30-35' which is perfect for the city) in that bed against the fence. I put the trees on the right side because our property slopes so steeply downhill, we need the height to balance out the overall view of the property when viewed head-on. Here's another section that may give you some ideas. This is a long narrow stretch, approx 145' downhill, south-facing. Alongside the house, the bed is less than 2' wide; against the fence opposite, the bed is 12" wide. These measurements follow the length of the house and back porch (45'), then widen slightly in the back yard itself. Here's March 2007: cannas and grass cut back, roses just leafing out, no bulbs showing: Here's May 2007 as a comparison: Beautiful as April and May are, there remains something good to look at all year round. Pelargoniums, passifloras, osteospermums, abutilon, salvia, clivia, ferns, erysimums, helichrysum, hellebore, limonium, cestrums, plectranthus, tecomaria, stacchys.....whew, the list goes on and on. But without knowing more about your siting requirements, not much of this will help.

Hi Greenman, It's nice to see you posting and I enjoyed reading about all the landscaping you've been doing. I can't believe how much planting you've done...you sure have been busy! The heat and sunlight here always will be a challenge and I have found many 'full sun' plants grow fine for me with only a couple of hours of direct sun or even in almost completely dappled shade. With your succulents, did you do a massive amount of soil improvement to give them the drainage they need? In general, clay drains too slowly for them. Since I have evil clay soil, I only grow succulents in containers where they can have the near-perfect drainage they require. They do still make burlap bags, and you're most likely to find them at farm supply stores like Tractor Supply Company or farm-oriented feed and seed stores. I usually only see them here in stores in the spring when they sell them right beside the seed potatoes so you can, presumably, store your harvested potatoes in them a few months down the line. One way to help your container plants in the hot months is to buy a larger pot and place the entire plant, container and all, inside the larger pot. That gives the potted roots some insulation from the heat since the outer pot would take the brunt of the heat. I look forward to hearing about your vegetable garden as you build and develop it. Ditto what George said about the native elms here. We have them all over the place on our property and they are tough, having survived all kinds of drought and years of flooding rainfall equally well. To go along with the plants Marcy suggested, the plant that grows best for me in a hot exposure is gomphrena 'Strawberry Fields'. It grows alongside our driveway/roadway/rural mail box and rarely wilts, even in August. It gets nothing but rainfall, being far beyond the reach of a waterhose. My most reliable summer plants in a southern or western exposure are echinaceas, gomphrenas, zinnias and verbena bonariensis. All of those are either perennial or reseeding annuals at our place. Dawn

What a great house! You have wonderful pieces to use in there, too. I love the gateleg table in the foyer, tho I can't tell how it sits in the overall space. Not crazy about the square rug- would love to see a round rug underneath instead at some point. Not loving the other table and little chair in the corner, tho. It feels like too many skinny legs, in the space. Also, I think that corner could use something taller to balance the fireplace I think I see in the foyer. Any chance you could shoot a pix from the entry so we could see the entry hall from that perspective? I am thinking the secretary would work in that corner, flat against the wall with the pix, and then a chair sitting at an angle at the open desk. Okay, just asking now, but I am wondering if you have considered flipping the music room and the living room? I would love to see the piano sitting in the bay window space of that room. Then the wingback chairs sitting where the two upholstered chairs are now in the room. The tall white cabinet would be a nice color balance for the dark piano and chairs. Then move the upholstered chairs to either side of the fireplace in the current music room, the couch opposite and perhaps toward the entry hall side of the room a bit. Then use the two wood desk chairs in the corner area where the secretary is currently, ideally with a table so that they have the feel of a game table area. Then move around the small tables you have to use by the seating, add lamps, etc. Hard to specifically suggest without seeing how the big pieces play in the room.