What type of ginger do you have? I really, really want the globba wintii (dancing girl ginger) and I think FL has them:) or blue walking iris or blue ginger (really, really want). My oxblood is just now starting to bloom.

Very interesting spring in IOWA! We are about 45 miles south east of Des Moines. When the storm hit on Saturday night we were in Knoxville Iowa eating, and later found out how bad things were outside! Sorry to hear about your damage junco1120! When looking at the hostas yesterday at most of the hostas unfurled, noticed that we must of had hail as there are many holes in the hostas. The hostas will recover. But what a spring going from 80* early, then freezes in between, heavy winds, now hail. See there are lots of Iowa folks on this forum. Come join us at the Russ O'Harra Hosta Society. Check out our page via the Hosta Library Link. Even if you arent a member you are able to join us for the summer tour in the Ames/Jewel area June 24. If you are on Facebook, we also have a page there. Need more info. Send me a messeage. Here is a link that might be useful: Russ O'Harra Hosta Society

Mick, I'm glad the hail missed you too. Whenever I have a garden that looks darn-near perfect and has plants that are producing like crazy, that is usually when the hail hits. Hail never hits us here in a bad year (like last year) when everything looks pitiful and isn't doing so well. So, since the garden looks spectacular right now, I've been expecting baseball-sized hail. Our rainfall was slightly below normal for the year-to-date, but today's couple of inches really boosted our total for the year so far to about 13" or 14". For us, a good year is about 30" to 32", so 14" by this point in time isn't bad. The rain has been falling in small amounts like 0.02 one day and 0.37 another and 0.23 another, so getting 2.6 was wonderful. Having the temperatures about 15 degrees lower than yesterday was nice too. I'm expecting the plants to have another good growth spurt now that they finally got some water. We're supposed to get more rain tonight, but I'm not counting on it. We WERE NOT supposed to have rain this morning, so I figure we'll make up for it by not getting the rain forecast to fall tonight. Dawn

Zip: Both pics you just posted are great. One way to create the 1st look would be to narrow down the walk thereby creating more of the flair up by the steps. I really don't want you to narrow down the walk, so you would have to enlarge the flair you have made to be wider than the steps. Not sure you would be happy w/ that, although it could be made to work. My fear is that it could make it look more like you mis-judged the width of the steps and were left w/ an "oops!". One way to get you that look would be to take the bricks and start the curve on both sides of the steps, starting at the foundation itself. Go out at least 3 ft and gently curve out and around the steps out into the yard, ending the curve about where you currently have it. This will give you the firm base needed for a large urn or pot on either side of the steps, plus a larger "chat area" at the base of the steps. The foundation plantings would then come out from the house as more of a deep border that would follow the curve of the bricks. I would rather see a really deep foundation bed at the house than runways down the walk. The large tree you have there should not be any further disturbed by even shallow plantings. And as you said... it will also leave more open play area for the kiddos. As far as educating yourself, since you are in the Carolinas, check out the older Southern Living Garden Annuals for lots of good plant selections and how-to's. These books are in the bookstores and may be at the library. I have several older ones (2000-04) that I reference and use as demos to my clients. SL also has a good Landscape Book and a great Garden Guide that are good research tools to have on hand. Three great sources for border ideas are Better Homes & Gardens Magazine Beds & Borders, Garden Gate Magazine Beds and Borders and Fine Gardening Creating Beds and Borders. BH&G and GG are special issues that are limited time magazine on stands now. The FG one is a book you can find at the bookstore. Zip: Both pics you just posted are great. One way to create the 1st look would be to narrow down the walk thereby creating more of the flair up by the steps. I really don't want you to narrow down the walk, so you would have to enlarge the flair you have made to be wider than the steps. Not sure you would be happy w/ that, although it could be made to work. My fear is that it could make it look more like you mis-judged the width of the steps and were left w/ an "oops!". One way to get you that look would be to take the bricks and start the curve on both sides of the steps, starting at the foundation itself. Go out at least 3 ft and gently curve out and around the steps out into the yard, ending the curve about where you currently have it. This will give you the firm base needed for a large urn or pot on either side of the steps, plus a larger "chat area" at the base of the steps. The foundation plantings would then come out from the house as more of a deep border that would follow the curve of the bricks. I would rather see a really deep foundation bed at the house than runways down the walk. The large tree you have there should not be any further disturbed by even shallow plantings. And as you said... it will also leave more open play area for the kiddos. As far as educating yourself, since you are in the Carolinas, check out the older Southern Living Garden Annuals for lots of good plant selections and how-to's. These books are in the bookstores and may be at the library. I have several older ones (2000-04) that I reference and use as demos to my clients. SL also has a good Landscape Book and a great Garden Guide that are good research tools to have on hand. Three great sources for border ideas are: Better Homes & Gardens Magazine Beds & Borders Garden Gate Magazine Beds and Borders Fine Gardening Creating Beds and Borders. BH&G and GG are special issues that are limited time magazine on stands now. The FG one is a book you can find at the bookstore. Get out there w/ a garden hose and play around w/ different configurations. Study and think about them. Take some pics and post for comments!