I hope thisisme's hunch is wrong. Sound like a possible nitrogen deficiency to me. I'd suggest gathering a bagful of dropped leaves and sending them to your extension service's laboratory. Your ccunty agent can give you the address and price for diagnosis. Misterbaby.

"= at this point should I rake up all of the remaining hay?" Nope. Leave it. It will break down and provide nutrients and organic matter. "= shortly my yard is going to be in a lot of shade, trees are budding as we speak and my lot is mostly "wooded"...any advice for dealing with the shade?" I'd plant fine fescues (creeping red, chewing, hard fescue) in the shaded areas. One mix I've read good reviews about is Bonny Dunes. If you google on Bonny Dunes grass seed, you should find a number of places on line that carry it. "=should I put more seed down now? if so what kind of grass seed should I be looking for?" I'd wait until fall to see how the grass is doing. If it needs to be reseeded, use something like Bonny Dunes for the shade. "= and to top it off, we have dogs that use that portion of the yard. " Oops. The grass will probably suffer no matter what, unless the dogs are small and/or the lawn is large. I've got a pretty good sized dog and she doesn't tear up the lawn too badly, but I've had to learn to live with a dirt track around the back yard where she likes to run around the lawn sometimes.

I like the white with them, and that leaves your accessories open to all kinds of color choices. If you want color, yellow, pear to lime green, blue -- actually, there are probably shades of just about any color that could work with grey. Is there a color you like to have around you or create the mood you want for your kitchen? If not, why not do a white that reflects the undertones and then get the other elements in place. You may love the calmness of it -- like the IKEA photo and probably the display, but if not, paint is easy enough to change if you find that is too plain.

We are in Western New York state, Buffalo/Niagara Falls area. To answer the others questions: It is 40 inches from ground to the floor of the porch. I'll be painting the base of the porch a sparkling white. I'm going to guess that there is about 8 to 10 feet from the edge of the wide front stairway, which is on the left side of the porch, to the far right corner of the porch, (sorry, I haven't measured it yet). The front wall of the house, downstairs, is white and the floor is new Timber Tech in light gray. There's a white bead board ceiling. We have a large metal glider with two metal chairs which I am considering painting a butter yellow which would work with the yellow day lilies. I would love to come up with plantings in front of the porch that would just take your breath away. Hopefully plants that would flower all summer. I've even thought of bringing in more top soil to bank that area in front of the porch base. There is a beautiful Clemantis climbing at the far right end of the porch. We're going to put in new posts and railings on both the first floor porch and the second floor porch. I'll be putting flower boxes on those railings. A major reason for going with the yellow is because the front wall of the second floor was painted a medium green that is almost a gold. Getting into painting the entire house this summer is not on our to do list so I have to work with what is there. I hope this is not too much information, but I thought the full picture would help to to find the right answer as to what to plant in front of the porch. Please ask any questions you need to! Thank you sooo much for any direction you can give me. Christine