I've read these forums off and on for several years now. It's amazing how many searches for gardening info bring up Garden Web forums! I bought my first house last fall and decided this week it was time to register and join in here. So many wonderfully talented and knowledgeable gardeners here! And, then, I find a forum specifically for Okies! One of the things I liked best about the house when I first looked at it was the backyard. There are just all kinds of plants. I have to wait to see what many of them are, although my neighbor next door has clued me in on some. The neighbors have a landscape pond in their backyard. One of the things I expected to miss about my last apartment (lived there for over 10 years) was the landscaping, complete with ponds, a stream and lots of wildlife including frogs and toads. I was thrilled to find out that the neighbors pond has frogs in it as I love listening to them. They were worried that the new owner (me) might object to having to hear frogs croak. I think we both got lucky! The backyard slopes severely and has some sort of evergreen planted all around it. Over the years many of lower branches have been trimmed off due to disease, according to the neighbor. Now they are very tall with foliage only at the top. Quite a few of them suffered a good deal during last winter's ice storm. There's still at least one sizeable branch that is broken and needs to be cut off. A couple in the back aren't broken but are badly bent over. I'm sort of hoping that the bent ones somehow magically recover as the birds and squirrels seem quite fond of them. I have already counted at least 15 different species of birds in my new backyard, and that doesn't include mockingbirds which I have seen in the front yard. I also saw a tiny mouse near the back fence a couple of weeks ago when I watering a spot that has some irises and a crepe myrtle. Last Monday evening I saw a baby rabbit in the neighbor's yard by my garage. Some of the plants (many of these I can't verify yet, just going by what the neighbor tells me) include crepe myrtle (3 in the back), a Rose of Sharon, irises, hardy hibiscus (looks like 4 of those), daylilies and some other lily the neighbor wasn't sure of the type, clematis out front, what appears to be a lilac someone tried to chop down that is coming back but is probably too close to the house for good air flow, and some boxwoods up next to the front of the house. The boxwoods look nice but stink so I am going to try to relocate them farther from the house in the front yard and create a flower bed with them as a back drop. To replace the stinky bushes up close to the house I have already acquired two blue hollies, four mini roses, a peony, azalea, hydrangea, blue lilac, and a romantica rose. I'm probably going overboard, but my gardening for the past 20 years has been limited to pots and whisky barrels on an apartment patio, and I'm just so excited to have a house with lots of room for gardens now! My biggest problem is that a large part of the backyard is heavily shaded due to the evergreens, and, especially around the perimeter, there isn't even much in the way of grass. Lots of weeds in the areas where there is grass. I'm looking forward to finding out all the creative gardening things I can do with my new house! I've probably rambled on long enough now. Going to leave work early today to have lunch at the Arts Festival then home to plant and transplant! Debra

I think it's set up. To make it "phony" they just wouldn't plug that extension cord into a power outlet. Unless they're suicidal, no one is foolish enough to do anything like this. I think they're fools for even posing for this photo. With our litigious society, first time some kid emulates this behavior, the two nuts in the photo could be sued to kingdom come. Rose

Thank you for replying! Sorry, Sophia. I didn't mean to butt in on your post, but I'm hoping my question kind of fits in. I guess I'm too particular because I would be happy with the color of Burgundy Iceberg, and I love The Prince. I liked Tradescant, but it was a bit too red. I love WS2000 even though it's more magenta. I loved the color of Ebb Tide. Do you think MW sounds like the right color for me?Thanks,Kitty

crl - that was our experience too. Ours didn't all fall down, but we had two or three that repeatedly came crashing down. I'm a little surprised at how much people seem to like them, as I couldn't wait to get rid of them and actually briefly entertained the idea of replacing a couple of them with sheets! Because they can only be raised by clipping them up, our cats would get behind the shades when they were down to see outside, and the shades instantly got all wonky and misshapen as I said above. They were pretty much trashed at that point. I wonder if there is a difference in quality, because I can't imagine using them as a permanent solution.