Pretty nifty planter and setup. Love it. Your planter setup determines how the roots will behave. Roots behave differently between raised bed or container. Roots typically like to grow out, not down. In a big enough raised bed, plant roots have room to spread out. In a pot, they try to grow out, but begin circling after a while once they begin to outgrow the pot. If it's easier for your roots to circle while boxed in then grown down or under the planks, your planter will act like a pot. After a few yrs of circling roots, your plant health will degrade. If the roots spread out below the wood and deck into the surrounding soil, your setup is acting more like a raised bed. I think you need to get used to the idea that no soil setup is permanent for anything smaller than a tree. Whether in a pot or bed, over time you need to amend, condition, replace soil etc for the plants to thrive. Here's what I would do. I would go to nurseries in your area, not big box, and find the best store-bought bagged planting medium you can find. Not cheap peaty miracle-grow crap. I would also not go through the effort of making Gritty or 5-1-1. Find a premium bagged product with maybe some peat, some bark, but a large amount of perlite or inorganic matter. Something with the majority of particles feeling a bit grainy or gritty to the touch, but not so shreddy. I would remove all your miracle grow soup and replace with something like this. Then I would buy a new bag of it each spring and top off the planter with fresh mix to replace what has degraded. If you can't find it, I would shovel in some local top soil, amend it with some organic matter and just call it a day.

Thanks for the feedback, flyleft; I appreciate it. I laid out some tiles to show my husband what I was thinking of, and he liked it. it's still hard for me to visualize how a whole wall of glass tile will look topped with the stone border. Got to work on that vision thing! Loved the rock column in the link you sent.

I had the paintable, smooth doors installed 4 months ago, and had no problems with the product or installation. No problems with the performance of these doors so far. I got double glass doors and they are surprisingly warm (I'm also in New England). So far I'm happy. When I did research on fiberglass doors, sun fading seems to be the complaint with any brand of wood stained doors in strong sun. Yearly maintenance is needed to protect the stain color, but a homeowner's efforts are never as good as the factory finish. We left ours white. My contractor recommended using a light color to minimize heat gain & fading should we decide to paint the doors some day.

alright, I am making progress. We are going with glass but still trying to get right shade. Yesterday I had a color called morning fog from Emser, but today I have 2 different colors. These were taken off of a mosaic type tile we did our master shower with, a set called sandswept. I went to a couple different shops today and was able to narrow down one of the colors as either American Olean willow or Interceramic Beach. Still working on the other one. Here is the one we have identified pretty much here is a comparison of the 2, one on the left I have been unable to identify, closest I have found was celedon from American Olean, and also the 2 with the morning fog posted yesterday Thoughts? I am thinking the one with the tan, khaki color would be perfect in a 4x8 or 4x12