who does'nt like 4 year olds? I mean for real, they are adorable, funny, and inventive! I think i would have marched myself over there and explained if there was a problem with one of my children my door was always open but it was absolutely unacceptable and intolerable to yell at my child...period!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! is that enough exclamation points to get the point across lol. Why do people have to be so rude, and especially to new neighbors, they will need their grass mowed someday or the drive shoveled when yours are old enough to help and my guess is it aint gonna happen :). My solution is get the yappiest dog you can find and when you go out into your yard place it right on your property line of the ugly neighbor and i am talking within inches of being on their property :). Or a rooster right by their bedroom window? The possibilities are endless hehe. Ducks trained to only poop in their yard...okay enough. I cant seem to let it go, so i am just gonna stop typing all together lol. One last comment though, i think once the lean to is gone a nice gazebo with a opening to the creek area and to the front would be nice with some sort of a walk to down to the creek. You could put bench seating on one side of the gazebo and a swing on the other...geez it gets more relaxing as we go. Plant nice flower beds around the gazebo and you could even have like a stone path from the house to the gazebo and tie it all in and the same stone path on down to the creek from the gazebo. You could use creek rock which would be very economical if you could find some place to collect it, just alot of work but sounds like your not afraid of that since you have spoke of the work you are undertaking already :). Come to think of it since your neighbors are so ugly would you consider selling lol. I know how to take care of people like that :).

Hi, If you check Craigslist and other classifieds, and tell everyone you know that you're looking for bricks (or anything else) they may start showing up on your porch. I put out the word that I need bricks and in one month, there are over 1500 of them in my yard, all for my favorite price, FREE!! A friend of mine says that there are a few bricks everywhere. It appears to be true. If you get bricks from lots of sources and mix them up, they just all go together. Sand is cheap to lay them on. If you dig down in the soil to make the bricks level with it, you won't need rebarb around the edge to hold them in place. Some people on the Garden Junk and Trash to Treasure forums have made paved areas out of wood and other materials. You may want to post this question on those forums. There's a lot of wood being thrown away everywhere in the form of pallets and old redwood or cedar fence boards. You can build a frame from 2x4's or pallet 'stringers' and nail the fence boards on top of them to make a wood floor. If the termites move in, just throw it away and make a new one. (Treated 2x4's are inexpensive and shouldn't be attacked by termites.) Total cost-the price of nails or screws. If splinters are an issue, the boards can be sanded and finished with any exterior stain, sealer or paint. Anyone with 7th grade carpenter skills could help build this thing. You may be able to find a sale on new fence boards and be within your landlord's budget. The wood is far less work than bricks and will possibly be cooler to walk on. This answer has nothing to do with landscape design, just a few ideas about getting a cheap patio. Hope that helps, Linda

I agree with all of you that these guys are so much fun to watch! I'm sure the hummers being chased off have a different opinion, but, at least in the case of my backyard, they do have other nearby options. My neighbor to the north has a rose of sharon at the corner of her house nearest mine, and I did not see my little sentry chase other birds off until they entered my yard. The neighbor also has some sort of bright orange trumpet vine growing along the back fence at the side farthest from me. So, even though the sentry wouldn't let them in my yard there were still other food options only a few yards away. I do have several of the plants most of you mention. I planted four o'clocks behind the house this year. They haven't gotten very tall, but they are blooming. I also have Grandpa Ott morning glories on a 6'x6' trellis intended to shade my air conditioning unit. I have some Cardinal Climber, at least that what I asked Horn for when I bought seeds, although the leaves are not like the original Cardinal Climber I grew. These have palm frond-like leaves. However, these don't bloom much until/unless I abuse them. If I start cutting them back severely they'll start making blooms, otherwise they just grow foliage all over everything around. I haven't tried petunias since I moved into the house. I did grow them in containers, whisky barrels, on the patio at my apartment, but they always withered and died when hot summer temperatures arrived. Maybe they would do better though now that I can plant them in the ground. Of course, the problem with all these is they don't bloom until either late spring or summer whereas the hummingbirds generally arrive in Oklahoma in late March. It does sound like the cross vine Dawn mentioned might be just what I'm looking for, and I would love to plant some native red honeysuckle. Now I just have to find out where I can get them and figure out where they might grow in my yard. Unfortunately, my backyard gets a lot of shade due to tall evergreens that line the entire perimeter. Dawn, how much shade would the cross vine tolerate? Any idea where I might be able to buy some? Also, anyone know where I might find the native honeysuckle? And how much shade the honeysuckle would tolerate? I may have to get creative and figure out a spot to set an arched arbor or something similar just out in the middle of the yard for one of these. The fence from my house to the south property line gets sun in the morning and has a large evergreen branch that was seriously bent by the ice storms in Dec. 2007 that needs to come down. If I cut that branch off it would probably reduce the shade that piece of fence gets during the later afternoon. Might that be enough sun for one of these two vines to be reasonably happy? Thanks for all the suggestions. If you think of more, please let me know. While I'm specifically trying to figure out early spring bloomers for the hummingbirds, eventually I wouldn't mind digging up most of my yards and replacing the weeds with flower beds of various types. Not only would that be more colorful and fragrant, but it would cut down on the mowing. :D Debra

Yes, I am. This is my first season for this count and I think it's a lot of fun. I try to watch for chunks of time, like at least 30 minutes, several times a day. I did not count on Friday...I forgot. This season I have also been counting for Project Feeder Watch which is run by Cornell Lab of Ornithology. It's a lot of fun and has gotten me to pay more detailed attention to the birds. PFW starts the second Saturday in November and runs until April 4th. Two weeks ago I counted for Mass Audubon but did not get many birds at all. Some days are so busy that I can hardly keep up. Other days are slow with few birds. I watched one Saturday afternoon for over an hour and had only one bird during that entire time...isn't that strange? sooey