I read through this thread last night, but was unable to post to it. Rather than read through it again, I'll touch base on a few things that stood out in being a native of Kansas City. Welcome to Kansas City AprilK and to the rest of you that have migrated here, or plan to soon. The Brookside area is a lovely area with lots of beautiful well established gardens and fully mature trees that are loaded with robust color and foliage. As for the Kansas vs. Missouri thing, grins, I grew up in Kansas and moved to the Missouri side in my early 20's. I moved back to Kansas only for a short while back in the 90's, 8 months to be precise, and I could not WAIT to buy a home again north of the river on the Missouri side. I've been in Clay County now for over half of my life and love it. Both states have their pros and cons, and much of it is more about the neighborhoods you select than it is what state you live in. There are "some" differences in politics and it shows in some of the ways laws are governed; especially Family Law. Also, a thing to keep in mind whenever seeking to move here, you should consult with your insurance agencies to get quotes on both homeowners insurance and auto rates; the amounts you pay might make the difference you spend in a mortgage or rent payment. Plus, the insurance companies are privy to high and low crime areas; it's a great way to weed out some of the less safe districts. The higher the crime rate, the higher the insurance premiums. One final note on location; if you are considering living on one side of the state line while working across the border, you will pay taxes to both states. Ok, all that said for the "transplants" (pun intended), now for some garden talk. I noticed multiple references to Peonies and wanted to mention a personal negative experience I had with them. I suggest that you do not plant them near the foundation of your home unless you enjoy ants. Peonies are a magnet for ants and if not tended to properly; they will invade your home. The previous home I purchased had a beautiful peony garden across the front of the home's foundation; very mature and robust. Once I got in the home, there was a constant issue in having to deal with sugar ants trying to invade my home. Finally, once I learned that the peonies were the root cause of the ants being along the foundation of the home; I moved them away from the home's base and planted them along the outside property lines where they drew the ants away from the home; doing so resolved the problem. While I love peonies; the flowers are short term on many species. Right now, with it being the end of summer and heading into autumn; we are beginning a new planting season here in Kansas City. The autumn is a great time for planting bulbs that require a hard freeze to bloom the following season. Irises, tulips, lilies, daffodils, hyacinths, crocus, etc... Again, many of these flowers have a short lived flowering life and provide the best show of colors when planted according to bloom span noted on planting guides; early spring, mid spring, late spring, early summer, mid.. etc.... You will want to layer bloom cycles to where you have a constant show of color. Just be careful not to over-crowd your garden and divide your plants, once well established, to keep them from choking each other out. Many of the above mentioned are full sun to part sun plants, and while they will still grow in the shade, they are less likely to bloom. Hyacinths do well in the shade, as well as Lily of the Valley. Beware though, the Lily of the Valley plant can be invasive given the right conditions and is also known to be deadly to children if ingested; not sure if it is the same for pets, but most likely would be so. For shade gardens, my favorites are ferns and hostas. When I plant my ferns, I loosen the clay soil by digging the hole double the size of the plant and filling in around the roots with cypress mulch or peat humus before adding dirt back in to fill. I've had the best luck with ferns I plant along the foundation of my home in a well shaded area; North side, and east side. I have not had as much luck in planting the ferns around trees; they seem to lose out in a battle against the tree roots. Hostas seem to do much better for me around the trees in lightly filtered sun locations; but primarily shady gardens. As I have 18 trees in my yard with this newer place I acquired a few years ago, I'm getting ready to try my hand with coral bells, columbine and some other shady hummingbird magnets. My full sun location in my yard is limited to about 10 feet wide by about 30 feet long. The area borders my driveway and my mailbox, which makes me think twice about filling the area with bee balms and other plants that will draw bees as well as butterflies and hummers. Lawrence, KS has pretty much the same planting specs as the Missouri side does. Sorry for the long winded post, but I love gardens, and hope you all find Kansas City a very welcoming community.

Finally I found the problem with Firefox. I had to allow third party cookies in order to come on and not have to log in. I am sending two links for you to read. http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/fix-login-issues-on-websites-requrie-passwords#w_enable-cookies-for-the-website http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/disable-third-party-cookies Please tell me what you think about this. One talks about making sure third party cookies are checked not sure what they mean about the disable- third- party cookies. But that was what the problem was, once I put the check mark in for third party cookies I stopped having problems with logging in. thirdfrt!!!

Flyleft, the main reason we won't build for a year or 18 months is financial. We can't do it all at once financially, so we will spread the costs over at least two years, and try to stick to a modest budget. I've been wanting to do this for years and we probably should have waited another year, but the right lot at the (almost) right price came along and we couldn't resist! Annie, both aspects are important to us, so we'll do our best. I read (but haven't corroborated) that landfills are 60 percent waste from building materials and sites, so it is something to consider I think. We definitely want to use materials that won't need replacing in a decade, ie metal roof, etc. The best building site (i think) is east facing. We could build on the north side of the lake, but it would be more of a mountain view than water view as the lake isn't wide at that spot. But even with east facing, we could add windows south facing for a winter sole thermal gain. I'd love to do geothermal, but don't think it will be in the budget right now. We probably won't use the cottage much in winter (not in Jan and Feb anyway) for the next few years. Probably we will have to use electricity for now (the electric power is derived from dams and is very, very cheap where we will build).

Thanks for all the good wishes. Popmama, I always post pictures, sometimes with credits and details and sometimes just randomly. I hope this time I keep notes. I get so distracted with all the beautiful gardens. Newhostaaddict - see you there.