Happy Spring to all! Thank goodness finally sun and warmth. Our winter was so bad that my Brazilian Verbena croaked. I hope it reseeds. Many of my shrubs have dead leaves and may not rebound. Slowly working to trim and clean up a bit in the front. I misted my wintering over chrysalis and await their birth. May all these days be long and filled with flowers and butterflies.

Hi B2, I'm still getting caught up from being gone 2 1/2 weeks! Just noticed your wonderings about sedum and hen & chicks! What you've done looks great and with ground cover sedums they'll spread fairly quickly and you won't really need mulch in there. If you want something while they're growing I'd recommend a thin layer of small bark mulch. With that you can easily pull it back as they spread, and they'll grow over whatever happens to get left and it'll eventually decompose. But the grass right next to them will keep sending rhizomes into the sedum which will be very hard to get out of the middle of the plants so I highly recommend putting some sort of edging/barrier between the grass and the sedum area. It won't stop it completely, but it'll sure help! For that little strip you have you might want to consider eventually replacing the sedums with hen & chicks. No round leaves but there would be other advantages! They spread more slowly so they'd take longer to completely fill in the area but when they do they'll be VERY dense and they do a pretty good job of keeping out most weed seedlings (still need to keep the grass out of there!) They also have less upkeep. The sedums need to be cut down once or twice a year to keep them compact and good looking, especially after they're done blooming--and it takes a while for them to come back after you cut them down. No cutting down with the hen & chicks! Every year a few of them will bloom and you just pull them out or cut those few off at the base and you're good to go! So, less upkeep and they grow denser than the sedums. The only downside is that you don't get the flowers of the sedums! But you could put a mix of different varieties in there and let them all grow together so you'd have some "variety", especially in spring/early summer when they're at the height of their color! If you have enough sun in that corner you could also plant a few of the upright sedums thru the rock mulch--varieties with dark leaves would be pretty against the white rock! Your yard always looks so neat and well-kept!!! Skybird

So here's today's version... Still playing around with that spot. So, this Saturday I'm planning to pick up mulch at the free city pick- up, and put it on top of the fabric. I combined the lettuces and parsley and the celery into the big black pot on top of the white bucket. I planted my squash seeds in the raised bed behind the two black pots. The one you see growing is a winter squash I bought as a seeding. The green pot has the peas. :) And thanks so much to popamoma for the swap of her hostas! I'm checking them every day. Any ideas? The fence is on the south side of the yard. This post was edited by b2alicia on Wed, Jun 26, 13 at 10:29

Hello Carolyn,I'm saying hello now(lol). my name is Will and had jumped into another one of your threads without introduction,(sorry bout that), anyway has been sunny here most of the day downright hot for part,am in Va. and the weather has been fairly good so far. No more snow here!!!! And thank you my easter was very good,hope yours was too,and many more .