GARDEN GNOMES STRIVE FOR WORLD DOMINATION! For decades we have been lured by their harmless appearance and thus allowed them to infiltrate our homes. Now a takeover is very close at hand. Underneath the lawns and gardens of the world, they have constructed huge facilities for weaponry and advanced training. At least 95% of all unexplained violent deaths worldwide are in fact the works of Gnome stormtroopers evaluating weapons and tactics. The United Nations, Nato and The World Bank are completely under Gnome control at this point. Also the global warming problem is the work of Gnomes. Gnomes are resilient to climate changes. They secretly burn vast amounts of crude oil and chemicals in remote locations throughout the world in order to ruin human health. This also explains the oil shortage. The economy crisis, the conflicts in the Middle East, the Russian military rearmament e.t.c., are merely cover-ups constructed by the Gnomes in order to distract the world's attention from their sinister plan. Garden Gnomes will be the end of life as we know it unless we take immediate action! SPREAD THE WORD! GARDEN GNOMES ARE EVIL AND MUST BE STOPPED AT ALL COSTS!

Well, let me start by saying that I don't have a mailbox like that, so my opinions are exactly that - opinions - and no more. I think you have a point when you say they don't look great growing out of the grass. But they don't make really convincing flowers either :-) What a mailbox garden in an otherwise plain yard says to me is "I couldn't think of anywhere else to put a flowerbed." That said, if having a mailbox garden is important to your wife, it doesn't seem worth having a war over. They can be cute, and they are actually a bit of an American cultural icon :-) An image search brings up lots of ideas for them by the way, including a charming row of mailboxes springing up out of the grass - but it seems to me that mailboxes have a function. I would think that function is best served if you have a brick pad around/beside it to stand on, which would also make mowing around it easier. Maybe a brick or paver pad, or even a 24" x 24" slab, with the flowers adjacent and good edging in a nicely shaped bed would be the best of all worlds. For my taste, a bed without hardscape always looks a bit accidental (unless it has really crisp edges). I always say that landscape design is for people, and so what constitutes good design in each place depends on who lives there. We, and the renegade gardener, can only give some objective guidelines, which if followed slavishly in all cases would create their own kind of undesirable outcome. So your landscape should definitely reflect your preferences. I'm also not a foundation planting guru - I prefer no foundation planting in the vast majority of cases - but let me take a stab at the problem with yours. I remember in an old thread, our guru Laag saying that a dark-foliaged plant reads in the landscape as a dark hole, or something to that effect, and gave as a solution something about backing it with something green. So one possibility is that the purple foliage is itself the problem. Only in this case, maybe if you put something bright green in front of it, using the barberries as a background, they might look better - deepening the bed to accommodate another layer of planting. You could also consider extending the foundation planting as far to the left as an antidote. Maybe move a barberry beyond the house corner. It looks on the aerial view as if you have some space there. But if you do that I would actually shift the planting weight away from the front door. The other general idea I was hoping you might pick up from those threads I linked earlier was about creating space in front of a recessed doorway instead of shutting it in. You have a fair bit going on there - I don't like what's in the middle either. But somehow what really bugs me here is that you have two uneven sections of your house, the garage one and the one to the left of the door. The one to the left of the door is smaller already, and your planting is hiding more of it; your tree will later do more of the same. That's why I would rather be able to see (or at least discern) the foundation of that section. And in contrast, the plantings on the garage side do such an inadequate job of hiding any of its mass that they look a bit... incongruous. They have no hope. They do not begin to address the blank mass over the garage door, which I think is what needs... screening, disguising, balancing... things that plants may not be able to do here (your tree on the right will maybe do it later). I don't know all the things that a person can do with that wall. Perhaps a little rooflet to match the one over the window on the right? A section of grey siding? Out of my realm there, but you get the idea. But in pursuit of having plants help with it, I would draw the bed on the right up toward the house instead of down to the driveway entrance. That will also maintain better sightlines for driveway egress. KarinL

I had a couple of pink flamingos in my yard for awhile. I named them 'Tongue' and 'Cheek'. They finally died. I think of,embarrassment.

Thanks Stacie and MKRuby :) I have everyone's questionaires that has posted. A few more days left any other little ones would like to play. I get to go to my daughter's school today for her class's Easter Party ~ I love EASTER and have been going to class party's for 22 years now!! I started in high school with my nephews'. Each year I try to bring baby animals of some kind for the kids to learn about - bunny's, chicks, kitty's, puppys... This year I am taking a Nigirian Dwarf Goat. 'Scooby' is a month old and one of 4 kids - he weights 2 pounds and is only 8" tall. Just WAY to cute! Have a great day everyone! Marie