Ostrich, I already trench edge my beds but I decided to dig them a little deeper and also dig on the bed side which I normally don't do. Always mulched heavily, too, until last fall. I had accumulated so much in the borders that the boxwood, which has shallow roots, was putting out roots near the top of the mulch instead of down into the soil. Not a whole lot, but in some areas it was noticeable. Then, a low stone wall seemed to be getting lower; ha, it was disappearing under mulch. Decided to remove all the old layers and did not put down any mulch at all that fall, over winter,this spring and summer. By the time I saw your flowerbed pic, the ground around mine was bone dry and I was spending time removing weeds every week. Instead of waiting for that elusive rain storm, I went ahead and laid down some hardwood mulch. Because of the way I re-dug the edges, the job went fast and looks great. I bet I dug at least eight 5gal.buckets of dirt out of those borders. I couldn't believe it. And I use a shovel with an 8" X 6" blade, the only thing I'm comfortable with and it makes a clean cut vertically or horizontally. Except now days instead of doing these jobs all in one day, I spread it out over two or three! ha. Gettin' old. I'm so glad it's done.

UPDATE!! If anyone still cares, I may have found a source for the "Orange Rascal"....in the USA. As my searching continued, I came across a posting, that listed the varieties of Hipps. within the Brecks, Hardy Amaryllis Mixture, (5 bulbs) (SKU#73695): Balentino/Valentino...Helios...Candy...Swan Lake.....and, drum-roll please,..Dah Da!!! "ORANGE RASCAL". (I came across this information doing a search for "Sonatini Hippeastrum Valentino"). This collection is/was $39.99 and may be available come Spring '12. I wonder if the same varieties will still comprise this mixture, because I will be essentially paying 40 bucks plus shipping, for one stinkin' bulb. Pretty pricey! By the way, when I called Brecks and asked them just WHAT varieties were within their "hardy" Amaryllis Mixture, they had no clue. Great record keeping! My searching would have ended at this point if only Brecks knew what they were selling. The end. Frank

We moved into our house last July and by fall had identified the 50 feet of really tall bushes on the W side of our garage as mock orange. The previous owners never pruned them, so no blooms but I did a severe pruning early this spring of the oldest canes. The existing canes still are leafing out only on growth over 8ft. high. Should I just cut them all back to the ground- are they hardy enough for that? Howdy Bear lake- I am in Idaho Falls!

roseabbey, The 'one up' thing doesn't always apply to the way paint works present day -- because paint color strips are not all created equal. Back in the day, there was a lot more consistency and 'one up' kinda sorta could really mean something. Now-a-days if you go one shade lighter, it's a real possibility that it's not the same color that you initially chose. A lighter color, yes, but very characteristically different than the darker color on the strip. Not all paint color strips are the same - these days they're arranged in all sorts of ways. Sometimes, 'one up' is a viable option because the strip really is a progression of color arranged lighter to darker. Oftentimes, that's not the case. The strip is comprised of anywhere from five to seven colors that can be very similar, but are essentially different colors. The way to manage and determine what is too dark, too light or just right is primarily by using LRV. Light Reflectance Value. The number is a consistent piece of data that tells you a lot about how light or how dark a color can look/feel. LRV is especially useful if you have paid attention to it over time and have benchmarks for you, your house that you can refer to when choosing what colors to sample.