New dawn is a good shade tolerant rose I have used successfully in part shade. The color is a little washed out, IMO, so a bit of shade helps it look less bleached out. Very vigorous grower, so you'll need a sturdy trellis.

I plan to put my entire grassy, weedy vegetable garden to mixed branching sunflowers this year; to extend the hemlock/mountain laurel border by about 20'; and to extend the dry stream bed over the rise and down to the road--about 25'. Also, this is the year that the extensive groundcover plantings should really be taking hold and spreading, so I am looking forward to this.

G.

Here is a link that might be useful: New Dawn Rose

Momcat--give them some comfortable chairs and a table,some form of lighting (lantern, candles, SOMETHING)so they can play cards, a cooler of soda, and a couple of mosquito coils and you won't see them until they get hungry. Add a fire pit/bowl of some sort and you won't see them most of the fall, either!

Trust me on this one....

I'm planning on getting rid of the rusting metal Sears shed at the bottom of our property. Whether DH wants me to or NOT. It'll just be GONE one day when he gets home from one of those business trips of his. (He keeps saying we can't get rid of it until we can afford to replace it. The ONLY thing in there we NEED to keep/store is the lawn mower. I'll find it a home...) The ancient, decrepit swingset is going to. A-1 Haulers is gonna LOVE me!

Once that is gone, I plan to address the "wild side of my yard. Nothing TOO drastic..just eliminate the privet, clear ouyt someof the scrubby gum trees, open it up a bit. Plant more ferns...

And I'm going to re-do the beds in my front garden. I've decided the sick ornamental plum must join it's deceased cousin the prunus mume in tree-heaven. I'm pretty certain I'll be taking the rose-glow barberry out. I HATE that prickery bush! And I may remove the spirea 'Goldmound'. Once I pull that barberry out I'm not certain how the spirea will look. This is garden DEstruction, if you will. I'm finally remving the remnants of a garden planted before we bought our house. It was designed by a local designer--but hte folks wanted "instant garden" and many of hte trees/shrubs are just too big for the space now...

OF course, it MAY have to wait until summer. I'll be working major hours at the nurery this spring. Gives me first crack at the plants, though!

melanie

melanie, i just knew i'd get a tip from you over "guy control" tee hee...i have a fire pit and old metal hotel chairs (good for bouncing off of for basketball lay ups and indistructable) in the area, i think the stenciling will make the area "official" and my stenciled concrete patio earned raves at last summers garden tour. i've got to think of something else to keep the twigs and logs in other than the blue plastic dog pool. i hated to finally get rid of my swing set , not only because i built it myself and it ment my babies were growing up, but it was a darn handy place to hang the area rugs to dry after i had washed them on the driveway black top. ginger, new dawn is on my list. i already have a zeph drouhin on the south side. large, dark brick houses are such a challenge to add color to so i think the pale new dawn would look great......

Hey Y'all,
(look mel the apostrophe is in it's proper place, :P )
I have been busy with winter pruning at the town parks. Pruning lust run amock. We have hacked and whacked! Dug and grubbed!! Battled the dreaded Smilax (green briar), it's still winning after two years but there is and end in sight lol. tons of bulbs planted and new natives to try out this spring should be fun. Hope to have pics for the gallery this spring.
Having lived in our present location for a year now (and managing only to keep up with mowing this year and not much else lol) I plan on going beyond the veggie garden and putting in some hardscape. New walking paths, extend the patio, and redo and better define the drive way and parking area. The seed catalogs are coming in now and my DW is being bit by the heirloom bug. So I see wierd and wonderful things growing in my yard next year!!
Have a GREAT Holiday everyone!!!

Perry--I love you! You've been a busy lad--Smlax is dreadful stuff. Kudos! I wanpictures in the spring!

momcat--I wouldn't be pulling down the old swingset except that it is hazardous--and we have a sewage easemnt that runs through our backyard that is used as a defacto greenway. Littles walking with their parents often stopto swing...and I don't want anyone getting hurt. It IS a good place to hang rugs to dry! I'll think about the wood storage...you get a firepit out there the boys will just LIVE out there. Tey DO love fire!

Sidebar--I've had boys I didn't birth sleeping in my basement six of the last seven nights...

A thought just occured for wood storage--more attractive than a blue plastic swimming pool anyways--how about a large galvanized tub? I've included an online source, but youcan find 'em at local farm supply stores...SURELY y'all have THOSE in Indiana!

Happy Chrismahanakwanzaka to you! (And Merry Solstice to all the pagans!)

melanie

melanie

Here is a link that might be useful: galvanized washtub

> the apostrophe is in it's proper place,
Oops, it's not in its place, it's where it does not belong. Those dang apostrophes. Hint: the posessive "its" is like the word "his" - and needs no apostrophe.

Firepits - they're great!
I like storing our firewood in baskets - they're self draining, inexpensive, and look good. After a season or so, they start looking shabby, and they go into the firepit. Whoosh!

Too bad the puppy finds firewood so irresistable, it starts out tidily piled in a basket, but usually gets strewn around the lawn within a couple of hours. Keeps him busy, though.

I'll be re-arranging and adding to the perennial borders as we made them three feet deeper this fall. Will plan screening plantings at the back of the property now that the shed is in place, and rework the veggie/holding/cutting garden area around it as time permits.

Definitely have to deal with the 200 ft. of hemlock screen along the south boundary, as a large area is too thin to screen effectively, and it is getting too tall. Planted by previous owners, it shades out the driveway in winter, keeping it frozen for the duration. May prune it into a loose hedge to make spraying for adelgid a do-it-myself project as well, and replace some of the trees with new ones where they were shaded out by an old privacy fence years ago.

Front yard needs complete renovation, paved walks installed, ground cover to replace poor lawn under maples, barberry and euonymus alatus removed, new shrub plantings, etc.
Hope to get a pergola built too, if funds hold up.
Jo

I hve created a "If You Give a Moose a Mufffen" situation. I planted an evergreen shrubery where the vegetable garden use to be to screen out an obnoxious view. Should have done this 20 years ago. So now I need a vegetable garden. I plan to yank out a perrenial bed that is a hodge-podge and put the veggie garden there. I'll have to have a plant party for friends to come and take what they want. If the transplanted asparagus grows, I will be able to take out the rest of that bed an put viggies there (I had way way too much asparagus for a family that barely tolerates the stuff except me, and gave tons away each year) and thus save the perrenial bed to be revamped. Creating a new veggie garden is out of the question as the only area left is the sacred horseshoe game area. Used once a year at a big cook out, but it does mean a lot to the dh, so for the sake of marital bliss...

Then there is the side bed that I yanked out, hopefully, all of the jungle of self seeded phlox and weeds. I trimmed the disease ridden quince done to a few stems. I finally found a source for white Canadian redbud and think I will be replacing quinces with one of those. I want this to be a shrub bed that will screen neigbors. Besides the redbud, I am thinking of one of those common rohdies that get really big and make a great screen.
Finish widening the stone path in shade bed on north side of house. Replanting is needed in this bed as the European Ginger died out in our extremely wet '04 summer.

And new porch furniture! The neighbors gave me a cool metal chair that needs to be derusted an repainted. That will be the first "new" piece.

Let's see...poring through catalogs trying to find rare, heirloom seed strains; budgeting what I can afford to donate out of my own pocket and trying to figure out where I can find funding for more pricy items; setting up a schedule for seed-starting; figuring out how many of the marginals and biennials will survive the screwy weather, and how many will have to be replaced; go clean out garden and dump manure on beds during Jan. thaw; put together a presentation of educational materials to start the approval process needed before they can be made available to the public; assemble 130 plant markers from mill-ends and wood-burn them by hand; jerry-rig grow lights; arrange with the arborist to set aside his spring-pruned branches for the trellises I need to make, and find jute twine for same; make the trellises - wigwams for the annuals, pickets for the corn, repair the tomato ladder and tall, straight stakes for the others; finish assembling all the historical documentation into notebooks, copy them onto hard drive, and scan all the old photos onto CD (half-done at this point :-) ); prune all the tender houseplants and re-plant them into the big outdoor pots; produce historical documentation justifying every thing I do; do all this as volunteer work while holding down a full-time job and attending classes at night. The weeding starts later :-) It's a lot of work to maintain a historic garden restoration, but we know it's worth it!

Whew!!! Gul. vol. Good thing they have you!

WAHAHAHAHA!!!
DTD, I stand corrected!!! Too funny (for me anyway), suffice to say you would have to know my Mum.

Jill, I had a lot of fun with containers for some of my veggie garden last year.
Roma tomatoes in clay pots, eggplants in old galvanized buckets.... Is there really such thing as too much asparagus?

Mel, pictures in the spring "fer sure"!
P