I used to make bouquets for my mother and never remembered to take a picture:-( These are lovely. Several of us may remember Thedarklady (Marina Parr) posted drop dead gorgeous bouquets 5 yrs. ago. She used interesting containers. Lots of Austins and as these bouquets were for church they did not need to last. Often the roses varied in size as well as petal count. I noticed her fillers were mainly lavender, green or white. Ageratum - lavender tall one Campanula Sarastro - deep deep lavender with mauve roses Caryopteris flowers clematis Comtesse de Bouchard (pastel bluey-pink) Echanacea - white or green single Euphorbia 'Diamond Frost' Gladiolus 'Green Star' Heliotrope - purple Hydrangea - 'Limelight' and 'Annabelle' Salvia farinacea - purple single Shasta daisies Statice - white Valerian officinalis - white Thedarklady's photobucket has changed. Here's one I saved. Bouquet by Marina Parr

The place to start is with a PLAN. Even though you might decide to act as your own landscape designer after getting some advice from people here, you'll still need to convert whatever ideas you come away with into a plan before doing any work. In order to get good advice, you need to convey good information about the existing conditions of your property, mostly through pictures. Here, however, comes the complaint: your pictures are lacking in the information they provide. They're dark, a bit fuzzy, incomplete, and some not from good viewpoints. I see some big trees ... but I don't really see them, or how they affect the picture of your house. One picture should be distant enough to include them so we know how they fit in. Then, from a distance of about 25' from the house, lined up with the front door, there should be a complete, left-to-right span of the property, from lot line to lot line so we can see more detail of what's planted in front of the house. The pictures should slightly overlap so we can follow one picture to the next, and understand what relates to what. Hopefully, you could take such pictures when there are not strong shadows covering the plantings.

Thank you everyone for your input - some great info here for me to consider. As I have been researching landscape professionals, I have been concentrating on those who seem to have significant hardscaping experience, since I know our project is going to involve a new retaining wall and section of patio at a minimum, and possibly much more. Someone to help me choose plants and design plantings is a secondary concern, although I have certainly been paying attention to people's styles in that regard as I research. Anyway, the people I have emailed thus far are all design-build firms, which I assume will be the easiest way to deal with this project, especially given Revolutionary's note about not building what other people design. That is understandable and I'm sure most of these designers have a team of masons/contractors they work with to avoid that exact issue. It sounds as though paying a designer for a buildable set of plans to shop around to contractors will just end up costing a lot more in the end, for very little benefit - that is, as long as I can find a design-build firm where both the designer and builders are equally talented! Asking whether these designers are willing to chat on the phone first is a terrific idea - I will absolutely ask! Site consultations have been offered at anywhere from $200 for one hour to $375 for three hours, and while I don't find those fees outrageous for someone's expertise, I really don't want to agree to the fee only to find that I can't stand someone the moment I meet them, LOL.

damask, That is one thing I'd never heard of. Learning something every day. That's what I call cheating! :) I am starting to think that gardengal may really be onto something! If anything, I may have fertilized too much. It dawned on me that I indeed used less fertilizer in another container with pansies I have on the lower deck (pictures below). I have not reached out to that one as much because...well, further away. Out of reach. Lo and behold, that one is doing better! I am trying to post some pics but I am having trouble. I will try separately below. Just like last year, violas did much better ...to the point where I am not even sure I will bother with pansies anymore next year. Maybe a few - but I will rely on violas to get my bloom fix. These little things keep blooming their heads off throughout winter. That being said, even these I feel could have done better. Too much foliage. Maybe I am a bloom glutton because even when my plants perform decently, I still end up jelly of those commercial, picture perfect results where the plant is completely covered by a carpet of blooms to the point you can't even see any foliage. (I call it lettuce LOL). Probably must of those are Photoshopped or ...well, blooming hormone.I need to practice some bloom gratitude and be happy with what I have. And maybe lay off the fert. :)