I tend to be very sceptical of 'miracle' products like Eleanor's fertilizer and Superthrive that use broad & vague rhetoric to tell you they do everything but cook a perfect 2-minute egg. If it worked like they want to believe it works, they would assuredly lay out the mechanism by which it works to satisfy the sceptics & even the cynics, thereby separating them from the ability to taint the manufacturers sweeping claims. It's sort of like the gritty mix or FP 9-3-6. I can recommend these products for container culture & make help you believe they will work because I can explain why and how they work in a way that leaves you feeling satisfied that your odds of seeing them as beneficial are very good. The many others adding their voices don't hurt, either. OTOH, we can see that it's difficult to sell heavy, peat-based soils when we look critically at them from the plant's perspective - or with the aim of optimizing growth and vitality. There will always be as few people who LOVE these heavy soils for whatever reason, but when it comes to convincing the masses that they truly ARE the best from the plant's perspective, the conversation usually finds them coming up short because of inherent issues that are very difficult to remedy. The same can be said of certain types of fertilizers. As a result, FloraNectar ensures optimal metabolic rates during the flowering and fruiting phase when nitrogen levels have been reduced. How can they make this claim? How can they 'ensure' anything optimal? FloraNectar fulfills the additional energy requirements of your plants throughout all phases of growth and during stressful times of transition. How? Plants' only source of energy comes from the sun & is stored in the sugars, starches, oils, and other bio-compounds they manufacture themselves .... When it comes to horticultural products, if it SEEMS too good to be true, there's a very strong likelihood it isn't. It doesn't bother me that some one else might be convinced of the product's value, but personally, I need a lot more convincing & something with a little more substance to sink my teeth into before I take the hook. ;-) AL

I confess, I am not seeing any rhyme or reason to the plan, other than "here are some nice shrubs." The forms don't complement the slope itself. They will be shrubs sticking up on a slope. You will not buy huge specimens and they will not grow at the same rate so ultimate heights and blending doesn't seem a sure thing. The shrubs won't provide enough erosion/weed control; if ivy is to be the basis of groundcover/erosion control, plugs should be set throught the shrub area, too, though it may not go with the shrubs (competes?)and/or the shrubs might be superfluous (dark green laurels sticking up out of dark green ivy). How is the vinca and ivy going to be integrated/compete. If you aren't terracing, wouldn't it almost be better to acknowledge the slope but have a pretty, green slope or a few contrasting greens("my house is at the top of a hill, by doggies, so use the steps!")? Perhaps use just a whole lot of groundcover--this could be explored further as to type;; I don't recall sun/water conditions--vinca for flowers? Ivy for sun/shade/drought/indestructible? Both good for uniform green color, cheap, fast spread. Carpet junipers? Daffodil idea is great for breakthrough color, no maintenance. Focus a few small trees or largish shrubs somehow related to what needs to be accomplished at stair way or other "focal" or grounding points (someone help me here, I am out of my league, other posters already said this.) These ideas are already in the above posts but the great thing about your posted plan is that to me it illustrates how those alternatives would be preferable. Don't mean to appear so negative and without precise alternatives. You DO have a plan. Maybe it is providing more important form and color interest than I can see. But it strikes me as very cookie cutter, foundation-ish and not really slope- or function- oriented. If somehow you could photoshop the same image with more of the down-flowing, uniform groundcover, correct color (not brown mulch, though mulch would be needed for the first couple of years) and the focal points I think the difference in "feel" would be more obvious. Youu would put divide your budget into LOTS of groundcover pots and a few specimens. Your existing shrubs could probably be configured in somehow for grounding. Either way you will have mulch/watering/weeding for several years until established. Can you "work" with the person who did your plan, saying, how 'bout something more like this....? Anyway, just think how much farther along you are in your thinking, planning, evaluating. Hopefully, it's all heading toward the ultimate goal of a plan that works best for you.

Rita, I have 2 Better Boy tomatoe plants in pots, so far.I usually plant 3 and some times 4 plants in pots.I have to watch them close and keep them sprayed with stinky stuff to keep the deer from eating them, too. I bought a pk of Purple verbena and made 2 hanging baskets with them.I had went to find some wave Petunia's but, they didn't have any yet.I had planned to go out this afternoon and see if they had them yet,, then go b y Home Depot and get a couple bags of Cow Manure, but,thanks to the statin drugs,this afternoon as I was getting ready to go,I became Blind in one eye and was afraid to go out, thinking I will be in a mess if suddenly both eyes go out on me..So, I stayed home,and the one eye has not cleared up yet.Its happened before a few months ago,back in January I think,and I quit taking that medicine,and seen a new Dr 2 weeks ago, that insisted on putting me on a different medicine,Crestor, in the very lowest dose,and I went ahead and been taking it for 11 days. So much for that one, too. I want to see if I can find that Greensand here,and see what it is, how expensive, etc.. Jean

There is so much discussion out there about this issue. The Apple forums are full of threads. Some cite a Mac/Windows issue, but I see sideways photos on my Mac devices, so it's not necessarily that. There is an orientation flag embedded in photos, indicating right-side-up. Clearly it doesn't always work, e.g., here on GW. Maybe it's the board software? I have both an iPhone and iPad. I never take pics with my iPad, which isn't the current model. I have an iPhone 5S and take photos in both portrait and landscape modes all the time. Whether I'm sending one as an email attachment, directly to Facebook or to Flickr (where all my photos posted here reside), I never get orientation mishaps. I never post directly from my iPhone to GW. I always import into iPhoto, crop if necessary, save to my Desktop with a logical filename, and then upload to Flickr. If you take a photo in landscape orientation, even if your iPad thoughtfully rotates it for you in viewing mode, the image file may still think it belongs laying on its side. When you import into, say, iPhoto, you can rotate the file and it gets saved that way, esp. if you export it to your Desktop with a new filename. Yes, an extra step or two, but just part of a workflow that corrects the issue.