Continue saving newspaper and purchasing landscape fabric with every extra dollar. Collecting leaves, pinestraw and other natural mulches. I must cut down on the amount of work (grass-cutting, weed-eating/pulling in particular) to protect my health and prevent an increase in my tinnitus. THAT'S the main plan & focus again this year.

I also want to attract toads (and box turtles) to my yard. I have a few spring peepers, some leopard frogs, and a few bullfrogs that, unfortunately, keep the others in check. If anyone can humanely transport tadpoles/toads (box turtles or non-poisonous snakes) to the Spring 2014 Swap I 'd be more than happy to give them a home. I have 2 watergardens and lots of hiding places in my little piece of Eden! I LOVE reptiles, and would be good to them (my cats are too damn old to chase live food anymore, believe me!).

Thanks for the post, jcalhoun!

Nelson

You're welcome nelson.

We're moving about 1/2 mile, so my plans include moving everything I can dig up in the yard that I've planted here over the past 7 years. Everyone agrees the new tenants here will probably just mow everything but the already-woody entities. At the new place, I plan to start a spot for an edibles garden, but probably won't get anything grown this year.

I agree, Nelson, I want to avoid *creating* any extra future maintenance at our new place, which we own and is kind of a blank slate as far as gardening goes, even though it's a really old house. The first step will be to rip out some shrubs planted way too close to the house, then make some beds. Before all of that, we need to make a patio by both front and back door to replace the rotted deck we ripped out from the front, and the nothingness (sparse muddy grass at this point, pretty shady,) that's always been out the back door...

My plans are to get my ponds setup at our new place, to move all my lilies, and build more raised beds along my 200 ft long driveway.

Nelson, if I find any spare turtles or rat or king snakes around our place this year, you'll be the first to know. I'm not sure I'll be any good at catching the snakes though! And I'll likely keep those, thank you very much. We've occasionally found some turtles in the pond but they don't stay around long. Heard Elvis (the resident bullfrog) singing the other day. Loads of green tree frogs (babies) around already and I usually see a leopard or two eventually.

My plans, which have mostly been executed so far, were to do some tweaking of landscape around the pond. Started this a couple of years ago, and managed to finish most of it this year. I've divided a bunch of DLs, moved some coneflowers and other perennials, dug up a lot of spreading juniper, and some dwarf grasses (replanted elsewhere). Replanted with some encore azaleas and dwarf butterfly bush and some other things. Plus I really needed to re-mulch so many bales of pine straw later and Preen treatment, I'm almost ready to plant veg plants if the rain and cold will let up.

Happy Gardening!

Hi guys, I'm glad to find this forum. My wife Michele and I are into our second year with our front butterfly/hummingbird/varmint garden. It's about a thousand square feet and we've re-loaded it this spring with perrenials and annuals and vines and some veggies. Also this spring we built a small garden bridge built partly out of free wood pallets over an area of the garden. I think we have some pictures on facebook.com/ronhmason and on youtube.com/ronhmason.
So this year we intend to concentrate more on the backyard where there is less sun.
Also if any of you have native Alabama fruit trees we sure would be interested in making some trades for them.

I hope this is a picture of our new garden bridge.

I hope this is a picture of our new garden bridge.

My 3 ft tall black gum tree didn't survive so I pulled it up today. I guess I'll have a slight change in plans since I'll need to put something else there.

IâÂÂm planning to build a pond on our garden. I was thinking between pond or a fountain but the latter is quite expensive. I will try to use a superhydrophobic spray for stones which was said to have anti mold and anti algae properties which made me interested because molds and algaes might affect the look of our pond and makes look dirty. A friend of mine recommended this to me and was told that itâÂÂs effective so IâÂÂll try it out.

Are you going to have water plants?

If not, you can control algea with chlorine bleach, hypochlorite, or copper sulfate.

I use uv lights. I plan to have lots of fish, so will not use any chemicals.

Yes I'm planning to put some water plants on it. I found a good product over the internet, they have a specific formula for wood and stone and at the bottom of the website, they stated that their products are completely safe 24 hours after application.

The video also amazed me so it enticed me to purchase one. Maybe I'll also use it on my patio.

Here is a link that might be useful: Always Dry

Nelson, I thought about you the other day. I came home from work and found a quite large gray rat snake curled up and making him-/her-self at home in my garage! I re-located it to the woods where we will both be happier.

I have so much going on, that for 2014 my garden is on autopilot. No expansions or renovations or anything.

On the landscape side, there is plenty that needs to grow in anyway, and I am hoping some of the larger plants in the design really leap this year so that the form can start to really take shape.