Steve, I have supports that have 3 flat sides, like a long triangular shape. It opens so that I can position 1 side against the plant, then the second, then the third. I use these in self-watering containers and it works very well. I imagine you could get them on even a relatively large plant.

Huh? Ashley who said your DH uses his German heritage, I missed it. I never heard of any job privileges for Germans in the US, there are advantages of being German in Germany but not in the US, so i don't see how being German is any advantage? One does not put in on job application (no box for that), "Hispanic" is on job application. By the way racial terms are very confusing in the US. Spanish people in Europe are Whites, yet in the US people of the same decent are Hispanics as a separate race. They are not separate race but separate ethnicity, different thing. lonepiper, of course everyone has rights to post whatever and ashley has rights to reply to their "whatever" with her "whatever". And it is cool, let's all say "whatever", but there are some things that are crossing boundaries here like saying that "n" word is harmless and is embraced by blacks. No need to do that. And we have African-Americans on this forum too.

I take a mixed planting approach to the garden here - trees, shrubs, perennials, vines, bulbs - everything has a place here and most beds have a mix of things in them. I grew up in rural southern New Brunswick, 'next door' to Maine so a somewhat similar geography and natural landscape/ecology to where you are. I think that significantly affected my garden aesthetic, having lived on my maternal grandparents farm-gradually-going-back-to-bush (Grandpa was 80 when I was born and lived into his mid-90s, always working outdoors on the property.) Looking back with adult eyes, the whole place was a natural wild garden and there was always a mixture of plant types everywhere - but everything had a reason for being where it was and everything fit together. At first unconsciously and now deliberately, I use that reference landscape and the lessons it taught me, to plant and arrange the garden here. Shrubs in the garden here are placed where the conditions suit them re light and soil etc., but also where they fit with what I want the garden to look like. For example, the hydrangeas here mostly bloom white - because that is a primary color theme in many areas of the garden. The one that fades to pink is also near other plants that bloom in pink - not necessarily at the same time as the hydrangea, but the hydrangea's pink phase continues an established color theme for that space. A shrub can extend the color higher in three dimensional space than many perennials would. Shrubs can provide a support for vines to grow through - mainly clematises here. For example, a large variegated weigela adds height, a long season of interest due to the green and white leaves, pink flowers - that are later followed by pink clematis flowers from a vine that grow up through the shrub. The green and white variegation is picked up/repeated in the white flowering tall hydrangeas along the garage, the 'Emerald Gaiety' euonymus in several places in the front garden, the 'Carol Mackie' daphne elsewhere in the same bed, etc.... None of the variegated plants are close to each other but the green and white often with pink, repeats itself around the garden area for most of the season in different forms, heights, and spaces in three dimensions. Basically, I think of what I want the overall space to look/feel like and choose plants - of whatever kind - to fit into the picture to fill all the available space in three dimensions. I certainly didn't start gardening that way - at first I was mainly interested in interesting plants. But as time went on and I read more about garden history, design, famous gardens, etc. I started thinking more closely about what I liked and why. That led me to make more deliberate choices about arranging the space and plants in the garden. Even after all this time, I still experiment to figure out what works best for me (see my comments on the lily beetle thread about the failure of my idea to plant euonymus on the arbour in the front bed!) So my advice is to think about the big picture you're aiming for, experiment, expect some failures but don't 'beat yourself up' about them - learn from them. Remember the saying 'it's about the journey more than the destination' - but it's important to have the destination in mind as a goal that directs the journey!

It's definitely a dining room. You would usually put a table here for when you have company for dinner and need to seat more than a couple who can sit at the island -- most dining tables seat 6 or 8, some have leaves to seat more for holidays, etc. I'd choose something rectangular and set it just off of center, toward the left as we're looking toward the kitchen, to allow for easy access to the doors on the opposite side. If you think you'll mostly leave it pushed out of the way, you could consider using a bench on the mirror wall side, to make that easier. If, however, you never expect to have children or dinner guests, then I guess you could set this up as a little reading room, with a couple of arm chairs on the left wall with a table between them and a reading lamp. It would then become a place to hang out while something is cooking, etc.