Pomegranite, plum, lettuce, spinach, strawberries instead of grass ( its dense and green and looks nice. Low also so I don't have to mow ). I also grow thyme instead of grass in the parkways. Chard is very nice along with carrots and people don't know it's not an ornamental. One time I grew sweetpeas on the street side of a trellis and sugar snap peas on the house side and nobody knew. Thornless blackberries are easy to wind into a tree and of course blueberries in a big fancy pot look fantastic. I have a rosemary hedge right out in front next to the sidewalk surrounding a rosebush, and some cilantro mixed in with the marigolds. If you mix some flowers in, nobody seems to know you are really growing veggies. I grew tomatoes once, but suggest cherry tomatoes only because if you get some stolen, there will still be some for yourself. I've got a neighbor with a lovely row of asparagus that others think is a fancy fern planting. Potted lemons and tangerines are fantastic in a fancy pot and look elegant. I had to take the tangerine to the back after all the fruit got stolen one year. Curious that no one ever steals lettuce!!!! I sow it all year and think its so pretty. It never gets too big and obvious, because I am always eating the largest plants. My top picks would be Strawberries Blueberries Fruit trees Chard Lettuces Carrots Herbs Anything you can sow and get a quick crop from seems to work fine with bedding flowers ( such as radishes and some herbs >

dixie I won't stop providing counter arguments as long as there are inflamatory statements made like the ones below - which happen to come from MA in a recent thread. But it wouldn't have mattered who posted them, the response from me would have been the same. I find it disturbing that there is no declaration by MA right up front that he is an architect so that the OP's (especially new posters) know the perspective from which his views are derived. In all of the other forums that I read and post on, this is the norm by true professionals in their respective fields. "I suspect that much of the savings from the use of prepackaged designs and/or incomplete documents is subsequently given to the builder in change orders or noncompetitive cost plus billing. Why are owners so stingy with designers and so generous with builders?" "I think the bottom line is that in addition to a lower hourly fee, a home designer must be providing an abbreviated set of contract documents which inevitably exposes the owner to more risk and therefore more cost. I believe this must account for half or more of the design fee savings." "I can see how these approaches could work for off-the-shelf designs or for spec houses but my practice is for completely custom original designs tailored to the needs of the homeowner's family and the site. A stock plan would be useless even as a starting point and the plans given to me by owners usually just slow down the initial design phase and increase my fee. "

If you want a forward facing gable over your entry: remove the existing roof of your front porch. It can be replaced with a shed/half roof sloping away from the right exterior side of the house after you create your front porch with a forward facing gable. Enlarge and enclose the walls and flooring of your existing porch so the exterior wall on the side closest to the road is made even with the rest of the front exterior wall of the home. Beginning halfway between the downstairs right front window and the right front corner of the house, create a forward facing gable with a ridge point halfway between that beginning point and a point on the right that is as far right as needed to be even with the far right edge of the existing front porch. Your new front exterior wall of your new wall will be a continuation of your existing front exterior wall and the forward facing gable you create will cover your new 6' deep front porch. Your new entry door will be on the right half of that new front porch. Alternately, remove only the half of your existing porch roof that slopes away from the road and enlarge the walls of your existing porch as before -- to have the wall closest to the road be even with the exterior wall of the home now closest to the road. Then extend it the roof slope on the back upward to a new ridge point that will enable the slope that is on the road side of the house (of even length) to extend over your new front porch -- that will have a shed roof toward the road. Again, put your front entry door in the right side of the new front exterior wall of your new entry and create your gable roof facing the right side of your home. Then create your new sidewalk leading to your new front door. If there is room for a 4' - 6' front stoop between the front exterior wall of your home and the tree w/o harming the tree roots, the tree needn't be cut. Toward that end, you might use a treated deck board floor for your porch rather than dig a footing. As an alternative, you could use a flat roof for your new entry and create a deck that wraps a few feet around your right front corner. Edited to address tree issue and deck issue.

I broke down and went to my favorite store, 888, and as usual went on a spending spree. They only had one type of the brands I normally buy. I did notice that all of the lotus paste had the yellow bean paste but none of the others. One is very interesting and would be more to the taste of most people. By Rimei Food it is called Lava Custard Mooncake. The first one I had with my afternoon coffee was a dense chocolate cake filled with a runny chocolate center. The box states that it is mixed. It has three types, plain custard, chocolate, and purple yam moon cakes. They are only about 1/3rd the size of normal round cakes. I will have to go back in October to hit the sales. I do not like freezing sweets as I find that they often sweat when returned to room temperature which to me gives them an odd flavor.