A country road with so many irises. Sigh. You paint a lovely picture! What a shame you have to move them. Maybe you could consider cutting down some trees? I have several pines that are getting so large as to become a real problem. I have trimmed the hell out of them but my saw only reaches so high. The pair I have in back are getting so big that all the grass under the sloping grade had died and erosion is starting to occur. At least one of them has to go. Even Lilly of the valley has a hard time back there its so damn dark. I also have another pine in front that is small enough for me to cut down myself. It is making my formerly sunny spot dappled shade; also un-cool! I own a condo (with my own limited gardens just outside) so I can only request the trees be removed. I I am hoping the lawn service we employ can do it without too much expense for the association. If you own than you can darn well do as you please. Lucky you If I were you, I would consider cutting down the smaller trees that are giving you to much shade. Just a few less trees might make the difference. Also do a real trimming job on the trees you are going to keep. I would chop all the lower branches I could reach. Got a handy young man to do it for you? I would not try to cut down trees that are too big and by to big I would say that any tree you could not drag into the woods once chopped is to big to cut down. A professional should do that. That can be dangerous exsp. around electrical wires. Also you might giving away some to your friends. I think it would make a very thoughtful gift. I wish I had to many.

Well, I am constantly rooting cuttings. And starting seed trays. And I also have some tender plants that I wanted so badly that I mail ordered. With all of those things, I just want to have a place where I KNOW the squirrels (and armadillos) can't get their hot little claws. I will never take the screens off the porch just because of my gardening obsession. :)

Yea I have some crazy koi that get bored and they loved digging lilies up. What I had to do was put large stones to completely cover the soil of the water lily pot. Large enough so that koi can't fit them in their mouths and move them out. That solved the uprooting of the lilies problem. They soon figured they couldn't dig up the roots anymore and started ripping up the leaves. Now what kind of water lily do you grow? I found out that I can't grow night blooming water lilies because the leaves and stems are very tender, you can even snap it easy with your hands and koi could rip them up easily too. I had another lily, which is a hardy lily named "Nymphaea Colorado" and it has much tougher stems that are hard to rip up. This along with some other lilies like "Pink grapefruit" may be tougher than what you have in your pond now. My koi still messes with them, but its not nearly as affected as when I had my tender night blooming lily.

The house never had very old and very dilapidated galvanized steel. We are fine with using galvanized steel. We have the gutters we took down--they have a long (4-5"?) spike that goes into your fascia and then cradles the gutter with some braided wire on top. The fascia is so beveled and thick and sloped backwards towards the house--not a flat surface anywhere. Plus, it's painted an old house super dark green that no one has in gutter color, so I was leaning towards this antique brown finish that looks like copper after it's aged a bit. Have a couple of leads I'm working right now and will keep you all posted about what I find! You're right about not calling gutter companies. What a waste of time that has been. It has to be historic home roofers. Even though we don't have a slate roof, these seem to be the people that know half round gutters the best. Also found out that my neighbor four doors down did galvanized half round installation himself, so I may bribe him to come over and help us.