kansas- There must have been something wrong with the plant/seeds, or the growing conditions on that one. I grew CJs for the first time last year, and they lived up to the description on the packet: ~24-30" tall, and the blooms were about 3" poofy. Granted, I agree, there are nicer forms out there, but I had no problems with the blooms. I'm going with the Diamond Jubilees after seeing twrosz pix up there. I think they'll be more well behaved than the CJs, which I found to be rather wiry and falling over sorta. Oh, and here's another one to try: Discovery Yellow (if you like yellow). They were about 10-12" tall, VERY well behaved & compact with huge blooms. A nice edger. I was bummed I didn't plant more of them. As I recall, the foliage did not have the typical marigold scent.

OK, seems I may have misunderstood the "trust" the forum has (or doesn't) in local nurseries. It seems I see a lot of threads by forum regulars saying "I stopped by the local nursery today and look what ended up in my shopping cart". Maybe those then are quarantined, I don't know. Since I am only at 35 varieties as yet, I can still find new-to-me at my favorite nursery. Which is why I asked the question. Where do you go? I'm very glad you asked. Well I am glad I asked too! I assume the "where do you go" was rhetorical and referring to the excellent, linked thread, because my answer to "where do you go" would be meaningless to anyone outside my area (All Season's Nursery). Thank you for the link. the single best thing you can do is educate yourself what the virus looks like Ah, yes. I am attempting to do so. It's difficult, working only with online photos. I have one hosta I am concerned about, will post photos later. I agree, though, need to know what it looks like. Thanks all. I am glad I asked because I thought the "distrust" was primarily for box stores, not local nurseries. Seems I was wrong. Unless you know the precautions the nursery takes.

That's OK, I've probably done the same thing a lot lately. The date info is in miniscule writing, and there's no "first unread" or similar feature. Since the forums don't change color to visited anymore, (and seems like they will never have an indication of whether or not there's something new,) I made bookmarks on the ones I visit daily & just gave up on the others. Clicking the bookmarked ones just to see if there's something new is where I've draw the line. It's frustrating when such simple tools aren't available. Since you're also in Z5, if you have a spot against the south or west side of your house, you could get a perennial patch going. I didn't even know about piling up leaves over marginally hardy stuff back then. If 4'o's get into a shadow late-afternoon, the flowers will open sooner, as long as there's plenty of sun for the earlier part of the day. The opposite but same strategy of putting morning glories where they will be in shadow in the morning, so the flowers stay open longer. The longer I garden, the more fun I think part-day bloomers are fun, and good for me. Reason to go out a few times a day & look around, see the diff performances.

A bunch of random thoughts for you to consider, in no particular order. In pretty much all of New England, one reason so many folks have grass is that it's the easiest to maintain. In our climate, woodlands are the climax community, the direction everything will grow if left untended, so anything that isn't mowed on a regular basis will grow trees, shrubs and woody vines that need to be weeded out. If you don't want lots of woody weeds, you can only make beds of a size that will be easy for you to maintain since getting rid of tree seedlings needs to be done regularly (a few times a season) to keep them from getting established. Mulch (organic material such as shredded bark) and dense groundcovers will reduce the need for weeding but not eliminate it. So you want to be realistic about what you can maintain. I can't imagine maintaining a groundcover bed the apparent size of the sketch, but size is tough to judge from photos. Whatever you have close to the road has to withstand the snow, salt and sand kicked up by the winter plowing, both the groundcover and for taller plants. Trees need to be either salt tolerant or far enough back to not be subject to salty melt water. Some things to notice in Yardvaark's sketch - the beds and lawn area have gradual curves that logically follow plant placement. This makes visual sense, but is also practical in that it makes the lawn you do have easier to mow without tight curves and unneeded wiggles. Many isolated islands may make the lawn maintenance more difficult, both for mowing and for edging to keep the grass out of the beds. You will need some type of edge (deep cut V or buried strip edging with a mowing strip of brick or block) to keep grass out of the beds. Sight lines to the front door are clear so visitors don't have to wonder how to enter the house. I don't get a feeling for whether you want some visual shelter/privacy from the road. Is that important to you? Do you want anything from your front yard other than looking good, such as a sitting area or a kids' play area? Look into milky spore for the grubs. Somewhat expensive, but it's a disease that kills the grubs and in your area I believe it should overwinter in the soil. It will take a couple of years to build up well, but won't effect earthworms or other critters. Other plants, not just grass will be effected by grubs, so you will want to deal with this before expending lots of money on replanting. For inspiration, I would find neighborhoods that you like the look of and consider how the yards are laid out that makes them appealing to you. Visit nurseries that have demonstration gardens or go on garden tours such as those put on by local garden clubs or the Garden Conservancy where private gardens are open to the public for a day. (Here's thread on them in the New England Gardening forum.) Look in your public library for books on landscaping, including how to drawing a plan. Since you asked about groupings of three, remember that your garden will be viewed from the road, so you will need some mass of each kind of plant for it to read well. Whether that is one or 3 or 15 or 75 of a particular plant, depends entirely on the kind of plant and how large you want the mass to be. If you look at Yardvaark's sketch, there are many, many individual plants in his ground cover beds, but not much variety. If you look at the first photo posted by mindshift, the are multiples of just about all the plants, some planted in blocks and some in drifts, though none as large as Yardvaark's large mass. You will want to consider the look you want to go for which depends on personal aesthetics, distance the yard is viewed from, speed of drivers on the road, etc.