This is a cute garden that I snapped a picture of the other day. Could I do something like this with the addition of some shrubs or other taller plantings as focal points? Although there are a lot of plants, it doesn't look too terribly hard. Lamb's ear, sedum, not sure what the variegated ground cover is. I should have added in my first post that I have a 3 y.o. and 1 y.o. and a large vegetable garden in the back, so I'd like the front to be relatively low maintenance. I am not opposed to covering the whole bed with shrubs and ground cover, then adding interest as the years go on.

Very nice beds, Gardengranny!

GrandmaChris, if you are reading this post I have proudly managed to load a few of my garden photos. Took me all day to learn to do this, but alas, success! They can be found in the gallery under the same subject title as this post. Hope you enjoy (other beds and borders to follow in due time. Liz P

As a landscaper I did a lot of yard makeovers. Plastic sheeting covered with mulch or rocks was usually the worst part of the job. One place I did had three layers of plastic with ground up bark over each layer. It didn't work the first time so they did it twice more. lol You have to peel a bit of the plastic back a little at a time and shovel the rocks or mulch as you go. A square shovel or fork will catch on the plastic so don't use those. Even a round construction shovel will catch on the plastic if you're not careful. Use a rake in conjunction with a shovel. Flip the rake over so the teeth don't catch on the plastic. Sheet plastic and 'Landscape cloth' are the two worst things you can use in garden construction. A temporary fix at best. People used to ask me why I didn't use plastic. "I see it used almost everywhere", they would say. I'd tell them that's another thing bad about plastic, you can't completely hide it for more than an hour or two. It looks cheap. Like ken says, it's a lot of heavy hard work. It's harder getting rid of it than installing it. Get some teenage boys to do it. Or pay a landscaper three times as much to do it. Mike...retired landscaper.