Hi Brent... thank very much for your feedback! Always nice to hear some others' opinions. Sorry about all the pics... I knew there were lots so gave fair warning in the subject heading + resized them all! :) I, too, like evergreens... but what was the deciding factor for me was that the city planted 7+ spruce outside my fence in the park already (see pic #5). Just thought it may have been a bit much for my taste. Part of the reason for the paper birches was to give some different colours (white bark + turns nice yellow in the fall). They say that birches survive in poor soil conditions... but I still think they are a bit finicky. So we'll see how they do... When I have guests we usually sit up on the deck or are in the hot tub. People generally don't venture down into the lawn area. I guess not much to look at down there yet until stuff starts growing up and filling in. The river rock was actually an extension of the rock that I put in along the south side of the house last year... more for functionality than anything else. I just found that the south side of the house was frying the grass... no amount of watering would save it so cut it out and installed the decorative rock. I kind of like the effect of the rock and the bluestem... reminds me of the cottage. But of course different strokes for different folks. The kids factor could be an issue sometime down the road (gulp). I'm a single guy for now with no kids... but you never know that can always change...! Thanks again for your opinions... really like to hear what others think. Especially people who are into it enough to read up landscaping stuff on the forums. Cheers!

I have to respectfully disagree w/ what's been posted so far. It seems that, for some reason, certain rose *plants* (not varieties) just do not produce flowers, but why this is, I don't know. I have a beautiful 2nd-year 'Variegata di Bologna' outside which is healthy, growing...but not a single flower. Meanwhile, a one-year-old 'Mme Isaac Pereire' -- a bourbon, like 'Variegata' -- gave flowers all thru June. And even a cutting of 'Lily Pons' that I rooted last Sept., from a friend's garden, put out a bloom this year! So it isn't the age of the plant that counts. A friend of mine has this same problem with a large, beautiful 'Sterling Silver' -- it just isn't producing any flowers. I personally tended his rose garden in May, and all the other plants bloomed beautifuly. A rose-grower and nursery owner I know says that it sometimes happens that certain plants just do not produce flowers. She deals in own-root roses, and says that if you root a rose off a cutting without a flower, the resultant plant won't bloom -- which sounds like an [non-PC language warning] old wive's tale, and wouldn't apply to grafted plants anyway. But the fact remains that these roses aren't blooming, for whatever reason. It's an anomaly, but it is real. I'm going to ask for a replacement 'Variegata.' I suggest you do the same. 'New Dawn' is a huge bloomer, you should have at least seen a few flowers by now.

pirate girl~ The yellow one is 25" edge to edge (28" point to point) only the snowman is paper pieced. Paper piecing has it's place. And its waste. But it can create some of the most spectacular stars!! I'm slowly working on some others for another project and achieving stuff there's no way I could achieve any other way!

First of all, great find for a nice healthy $10 Eden! The good news is that Eden should do fine for you in zone 5, but they might appreciate a little protection. Mine is rarely cane hardy in my zone 5 and it only seems to bloom on surviving cane. If you winter protect, you'll get more reliable blooms. The bad news (relatively speaking) is that this is the normal Eden/Pierre de Ronsart. Nothing that I've seen indicates a zone 3 ranking other than the optimism of the sellers making that sheet, though it's reasonably hardy as a climber in zone 5. I'd take the zone 3 ranking like the "blooms perpetually" on every rose Clements ever marketed, as a bit of wistful thinking at best. Cynthia