oh my .... get it dormant.. keep it dormant.. in the great white north... you should let the plant go totally dormant... and then mulch it.. so it will stay dormant ... and not heave .... if you mulch heavily ... and cause the plant to NOT go dormant at the right time ... and then the ground freezes.. while the plant is still in lush growth phase.. it can die .... i learned this lesson the hard way.. when i killed 25 of 100 roses way back when ... went a little to type A on them ... lol ... now.. that would be the theory ... but that application of said theory.. in your zone.. in your garden has much flexibility .... if you kill a bunch of stuff.. well.. i was right... if you didnt... you timed it.. and applied it.. PERFECTLY.. for your garden.. in your zone ... lotta grey in this black and white answer .... and back to the link about accumulating leaves ... type A.. type B ..... the point is not what is right or wrong for your garden in your zone .. its about what YOU need to do.. whether or not it is related to WHAT THE PLANT NEEDS .... is a whole other issue ..... its about teaching a total neophyte about the variables.. not dictating to them.. that it is imperative to put their children to bed in fall.. to feed them in spring... etc ... zone appropriate stock.. should NOT """NEED""" anything .... how you want to deal with them is about YOU... not them ... and if mx FEELS GOOD .. all the power to her... but i havent done a darn thing since the national tour was here in june... and she will be no more successful than i will be .... have a great day .... ken

Congrats on growing beautiful children! Don't feel guilty about allocating some $$ of the budget to keep your home happy and functioning. When I had my son the Csection went badly and I couldn't function in the yard for almost a year. The only plus side was that house was on a in-town lot and a half with sand-based soil. It wasn't so horrible to get going again as the soil was so loose and the property was small. But, it did break my heart to look out and see weeds, weeds, weeds. When we moved to our current property it was is sorry shape. Nothing had been done with the 2-acre property other than cut the open lawn areas for at least a 4 year period! (When I say "cut the open areas" I mean the cutting a riding mower can do around trees, ditches, etc). The original owner had circled the house with plantings of green hosta, forsythia, and purple iris, with double white peonies alongside the steps. The forsythia had overgrown the windows of the house, the gutter had come off the high end of the house and allowed erosion along the steps (there were no peonies to see at the time...only a waist-deep gully), and knee high grass was present from the landscape timber edger across the 3' "bed" to the house. An orchard of over 20 fruit trees that had not been pruned, maintained (or even mowed) for 4 years. No sidewalks. Just a vast green weed expanse of 2 acres with an orchard of fruit "bushes" inside a meadow and a house with basically no windows as the forsythia covered them. I hired a guy to pull out all of the forsythia, repair the deck, put in a gravel sidewalk, spray-kill the grass in my intended new flower bed, and bring in two tandem truck loads of mulch. I put my efforts into terrace gardening along the steps to get rid of the gully and reclaiming the hostas, irises, and fruit trees. Imagine my surprise when beautiful, fragrant peonies came up in my new terraced rock garden. Apparently peony roots will withstand a lot of abuse as there didn't seem to be anything but brick-solid eroded gully there before! The point of this long story: if its a big project you have to budget between your time, your priorities, and your $$$. We are ALL doing that on a regular basis. Who are we trying to impress??? OURSELVES!!! Feel good at the end of the day! Have time for your babies! Create a beautiful and peaceful haven for your family. Some people can put more of their own time and muscle behind it; others will need to put more of their $$ into a project because its beyond their physical abilities. Its all good if you can enjoy the results at the end of the day...and don't forget to sit down in that nice yard with your loved ones and ENJOY IT (there's where I miss a priority from time to time). A "before" shot, sort of, I had trimmed the forsythia off the windows, put the gutter up, and shoveled the gully wash out dirt off the driveway. An "after" shot:

Our board meets on 9/30 and 10/14 but is "booked" for those dates. We also need time to notify the neighbors. I might be able to get pushed into the 10/14 date, but that will be special treatment and is not a sure thing. I made friends with the very arbitrary commissioner, so have a long list of high up town employees who may pull strings on my behalf, but have to count on the 10/28 date for now. Since we had the variance approved last time, there have been many code changes or even just that they enforce what used to slide. Our plans are for less than last time, so it should be a no brainer, other than the fact that the game has changed in the interim. Our GC won't really order materials until it is clear we can proceed. Luckily (or not), we have most of our materials picked out and approx 75% on premises already. Any delay on materials will not come from us, lol.... Today it was over 80 degrees, so Nov could be 50 or could be -50, lol. We usually do not see snow until late Dec, so we are hoping that hold true this year. The ground is not fully frozen until late, but I am more concerned about living here in the cold with functioning heat. We have suffered through 4 summers with almost no a/c (only the one in our sons' room is any good and our bedroom has the only other one, and that one is ancient). I figure since we got through that, we could always layer clothes in cool weather, and maybe be ok. It seems like we have no choice, so it will be what it will be. Thanks for all the encouragement and support. I feel like I have called "wolf" before, but this time he might actually be getting close, lol.

I love that feeling too! I did not make it to yoga, my legs were just too over worked LOL. The yoga instructor loves downward dog between every single pose and that is hard on my wrists which hurt after pilates but were soo bad after toning I couldn't use the weight bar at the end and switched to hand weights. my pilates instructor is from Birmingham, her name is Jill she used to teach there for many yrs! i wish my place had a pool i'd love to do water aerobics or water zumba! ~ liz