Benderboard is used for a clean, defined edge. If your paths are intended to be informal and you don't mind the gravel spilling out of the path (it definitely will anyway) the benderboard is not necessary. What borders your path? That may tell you whether a clearly defined edge is important or not. Gravel spilling into a xeriscape bed is fine. Bermuda grass mixing into a gravel path is not so fine. The nature of pea gravel makes it less than ideal for paths. If you can find crushed rock, it will be more pleasant to walk on and will travel less.

Put it ALL in. What came out of the eavestrough is as you think it is, decomposed leaves. Its a great addition to your compost pile. Peanut Butter. If you think peanut butter is not what should be put into a compost pile of rotting garbage, then throw it away. Better still though, give it to your neighbors who will throw it into their compost pile. Don't be led down the garden path by scary stories of putting stuff in a compost pile that will harm it. Meat, if its buried deep, fish carcases, if its buried deep, milk solids, if its buried deep will decompose down as much as anything else. It just depends on how much goes in there and if you bury it under a lot of grass clippings, other food waste, leaves and soil, you've done well by your pile. All this food, don't let it go to waste. It all has microbes -- and I haven't met a dangerous microbe yet I wouldn't let eat in my compost pile.

Mike, It sounds like you are at that stage when local nurseries and big box nurseries are too limited for what you want to grow, and you need to make the transition to mail order specialty nurseries. Big Box and local nurseries will vary in their selection based on what the market demand is, and whether there is an educated, more adventurous buyer for the store. I can speak from experience that it varies by location, as there is one Home Depot in particular here in the San Francisco Bay Area that consistently has the most interesting and diverse selection compared to any other location. For those locals, that would be the San Rafael Home Depot in Marin County. To answer your general question about a specific Aloe's adaptability to your conditions, it is hard to generalize about how they will do in your location, as you don't have the basic climate that supports them as outdoor plants, nor are plants grown indoors in winter and outdoors in summer going to exhibit the same degree of hardiness to unexpected weather that the same plant hardened off outdoors will exhibit. To give just one example, succulent plants that I grow such as Bulbine frutescens, Aloe striata and Aeonium canariense all tend to be somewhat frost tender in my local conditions because cold is often accompanied by very wet winter storms. I tend to get damage on all of these at 30 to 32F temperatures, whereas in drier winter locations with less winter rains and much warmer days, such as in Tucson, these plants may easily take 25~26F without any signs of damage,(except for the Aeonium, which just doesn't like desert heat). As to what succulents will do best under your local conditions, you'll be better served by speaking with local specialty growers, and find what has worked best for them. I can really only speak to which plants do well under California conditions here in northern California, but also have some experience with succulents from South Africa or Mexico which I have also seen do well in tropical locations such as Brazil, Malaysia, Indonesia and subtropical desert climate of Saudi Arabia; all places where I have lived and worked professionally. As one example, the Bulbine frutescens is so widely tolerant of different growing conditions that it is well regarded in both subtropical deserts, Mediterranean climates and the wet, humid tropics, but probably grows best and flowers the most here in a Mediterranean climate, where it can bloom all year round. If you have a local Cactus and Succulent Society that you can join, or a local botanic garden to join as a member to get more specific growing information, that all helps. If you have a specific interest in Aloes in general, and need to grow them indoors in winter, then you will probably gravitate to the smaller growing Madagascar species and hybrids, which take up less space, but are usually more tender to cold and more specific in their needs, as Madagascar has a real range of climates based on rainfall and altitude. My own focus on Aloes is more related to the ones most easily grown outdoors year round in my climate, and that have the more interesting forms or flowers, with a bias towards the showiest bloomers and the larger growers. I also tend to specialize in those that clump easily or are fast to regrow from cuttings, as these lend themselves to landscaping projects with lower budgets, for instant effects. I particularly love species and hybrids that I can replant directly as unrooted cuttings, and know that they will simply take off for mass bloom. Plants such as A. arborescens in the different color forms, A. striatula, A. maculata are particularly useful in this regard. One dwarfer growing hybrid that I would highly recommend for container culture and is probably little seen outside of California, is the dwarf everblooming Aloe 'Johnson's Hybrid', which truly does bloom all year round here in the San Francisco Bay Area, and is very showy to boot. Good luck with your hobby, and if you can squeeze in a foreign trip to South Africa or Mexico to see your favorite plants in habitat, it will definitely reward you with a better understanding of the succulent growing possibilites and the range of plants that you might get interested in. I might also steer you towards one of my favorite local nurseries that does mail order country wide and has a rather diverse range of succulents to choose from: www.anniesannuals.com Good luck with your interests, and sorry I couldn't really be more specific about plants for your conditions! I don't grow any succulents indoors except for a few Gasterias and Kalanchoes, and most everything else is outdoors year round and must be able to take the occasional 28F frost and wet winters of Berkeley.

Pam, If you're using the polycarb ridge cap with the same kind of corrugations as the panels, you need to screw it down like the sheets. Or, you can just buy lengths of galvanized steel ridge and screw it to the corrugations and use filler strips to plug the spaces in between. I've used a vented ridge cap on some applications too. It allows hot air to escape through non-leaking vents in the pieces. Easy way to crawl on the structure is to cut a piece of 3/8" OSB to just short of where the ridge edge will go. Build a "stop" out of 2X that'll screw onto the top plate or exposed wall studs to hold the OSB. Screw that to the OSB. Ladder up to the platform and lay the pre-drilled cap in place. Come down and move the structure down the wall 4'. Don't forget to orient the seams away from the prevailing wind. Seal them with some silicone. Depending on the pitch of the roof, you may have to put some thin battens on the OSB sheet to keep from slipping off, or losing a drill...