Spunky, I think that is a really good question and topic. What ARE the alternatives for people who have budget restraints, but still need help getting their landscape in good order. There are ways, actually. Most homeowners can do simple installations if their beds are prepared well. My daughter is working with such a client now. She presently has tight little beds directly against her foundation and several bargain shrubs from a box store in unsuitable locations. With the budget she has, the emphasis shall be on expanding and preparing her existing beds for a more natural look and the "backbones" installed. IOW, several suitable key shrubs upon which she can elaborate and a tree. It is explained to clients like that a landscape should look presentable from day one, but can evolve over time into its potential. A good design is included for them to keep, so that they may purchase material on the bargain when those sales do occur they may install themselves, or hire to be done. The thing is, like stated, it's the plan and design end and the hardscaping so necessary to build on which the money should be spent for. The rest can be installed by anyone (including skillful amateurs) after the fact. It isn't instant gratification, but can be an alternative to those who need one. If a property has a sophomoric plan to build on, sooner or later, somebody has to address the poor planning. That being said, a job like that often finds itself on the lower rung of the ladder for busy and successful landscapers, but can be done quickly and between larger jobs.

"It rubs us wrong because women have fought so hard for their rights, so families like the Duggars make us feel like they are regressing." I do not see it as regression. My hope for all people (regardless of gender or race) is that they are able to pursue a life of their choosing and that we as a society provide at least a minimum of education that should one decide to alter or change the trajectory of their life, they have at least a bare minimum of resources to fall back on. I think it would be sad for women rights to free women from one master (patriarchy) to find themselves subjected to another, with that other being told/forced to live their lives according to the standards of other. I want to pursue the life that fulfills me, not the one other's say should fulfill me (regardless of it is women or men setting the standard). My hope would be that all women and men get to pursue the life they want.

Ants will kill plants a LOT faster if they bring boric acid into the container with them, I'm just glad I figured it out in time. Boric acid is the ingredient in some ant and roach baits that can be purchased commercially,so if you use such methods and the pest problem is taking up residence in your houseplants and you are unaware of this,they might end up poisoning your plants. Yaknow Purp,..that's one thing I don't miss about the south...no fire ants up here. The entire southeast is floating on a bed of 'em...like I need to tell you! HA! While down on the coast,I remember going to war with them and winning...well I chased 'em out of my area anyway. I poured boiling water in their nests until they ran for their lives. ...also not an option for removing them from plants. lol I've immersed the ficus recently enough,but it wasn't for anything near 24hrs. This is when I first found out that they were nesting in there because they came flooding out in numbers. Killed a bunch that day,but let's face it...until the queen is dead she'll just keep replacing the ones I kill. For now I'm putting up with ants running loose in my room. Hopefully when the weather warms up enough to drag the collection back outside,then I can get a bit more aggressive with them.

Jack, What yummy pepper recipes! Thanks for posting them. We live on poppers here in the summertime, and I freeze tons of them so we can have poppers all year long. That's one reason I grow a ridiculously large number of jalapenos. I was so proud of KC---I wasn't expecting them to win either---but, woo hoo, they did it! Even better was the fact that they beat the Patriots. So, it was a great football weekend---your team won, OU beat Ohio State, the Dallas Cowboys won and so did OSU. I stayed up too late watching the Cowboys last night and had a hard time dragging myself out of bed this morning. Rebecca, Any and every variety of garlic I've ever grown does well here, so either we have an ideal climate for it (with proper fall planting) or it just isn't that picky. I like trying new ones often because there's so many different flavors. I probably grow more softnecks than hardnecks but they perform equally well in my soil. Michelle, Ha! I bet Tim and I are tied with you as most boring persons in the world too. So are all our neighbors. Once, in a hot dry summer, we finally got a cool, rainy day. Everyone in the neighborhood, including us, sat outside in their lawn chairs after the rain stopped and just watched the frogs and toads and dragonflies doing their thing, enjoying the cooler, more moist air and all the puddles covering the ground. When we gathered and talked later, we laughed because every neighbor (we are spread out too far apart on acreage to see each other out in the yards) was sitting outside watching the wild things just like we were. We all agreed that our kids (at that point they all were high school or college aged) surely thought that we need to get out more...not outside....out of our little comfort zones at home. I'd still rather be out in the yard, sitting on the patio, watching the frogs, than sitting in a movie theater. For us, the best flowers for low-irrigation areas, especially in western- and southern-exposures, have been: lantana, salvia greggia (I have several different ones---some bloom red, one is red and white, one is pink or coral, etc.), Russian sage, daturas, moss rose, red hot poker, cannas, Laura Bush petunias (seeds are available through Wildseed Farms online) and gomphrena (I have Strawberry Fields growing down by the mailbox and it has survived for 6-8 years on no irrigation and reseeds itself---in horrible clay and driveway gravel). Oh, and salvia farinacea. It does well on little to no irrigation, and mine has come back for several years now though it really functions only as a half-hardy perennial here. It is just that we haven't had any cold winters lately, other than an occasional really cold night here or there. Mexican hat and gaillardia also do well in our front pasture with only rainfall, but can get tall and floppy in better soil and with more water. Mary, I hope your loved ones in Florida are fine. There's some horrible images this morning of flooding, storm surge and wind damage. As bad as it is, it could have been so much worse. Had Irma not hugged Cuba's coastline (and, sadly, done massive damage there) for so long before hitting Florida, I think Florida would have been hit even worse than they were. The amazing thing to me has been how that storm traversed the whole state while maintaining its circulation---and with such a huge wind field that covered the whole state, part of the ocean and part of other states all at the same time. There also were a gazillion tornado warnings (and there's more right now as I'm typing this with TWC on the TV), but thankfully, most tornadoes that form from hurricanes are not giant monsters like ours can be here in the Great Plains. Still, I wouldn't want to get hit even by a "small, weak" (relatively speaking) one either. Amy, Condolences on the loss of your childhood friend's mother. That's a tough thing to go through---it does bring back huge waves of nostalgia, does it not? Your parents have made it to such an awesome aniversary---66 years together is just incredible. How's your mom's hip? I am sure the refrigerant has changed at least twice, and we have had some added to ours over the years. I do dread having to buy a new system, but it is just one of those things that is inevitable here at some point. I'm just glad we have air conditioning. I don't know how people handled the heat without it---although we didn't have it in my childhood home either. We had swamp coolers when I was a younger child, and then my parents finally put in window units---two of them---one in the living room and one in the den when I was in high school. They didn't put central air in their house until around 1984 or 1985---after we bought our home on the same block as theirs and put in central air and heat right away. Then, suddenly, they added it to their house (with our encouragement), using the same HVAC guy that installed ours. Nancy, The western wildfires have been so awful this year and it is just heartbreaking. I also think that they really don't get the news coverage, at least here (but, really, not on the national news either) that they deserve. I've noticed the last couple of weeks that we are having the most gloriously beautiful pink and orange sunsets---but the reason for that is that the cool fronts have been bringing smoke in the atmospher to us---from the western wildfires. So, while the sunsets are gorgeous lately, I hate that it is smoke in the air making them look so beautiful. I hope y'all have a safe, fun and productive trip, and I'm so happy to hear that Titan is back to being himself again. Eileen, Yes, it is a well-known fact that the differently colored carrots all have their own unique flavor---and the purple ones are definitely a spicier flavor than the standard orange (and yellow) ones. I find grocery store carrots disappointing compared to home-grown ones. Summer carrots also are disappointing. My favorite carrots are any of the orange ones that mature in autumn through spring because the cooler weather makes them sweeter. Summer carrots that mature in hotter weather never taste as sweet and flavorful to me. Mary, Are you allergic to any of the standard late summer/early autumn pollen like ragweed? That could be affecting your breathing as well. I am horrifically allergic to ragweed and so is Chris, so we sneeze, sniffle and cough our way through ragweed season. Take it easy on your heart---I know it is good for you to be as active as possible to build better heart health to the extent that you can with your HF, but you don't want to overdo it. A lot of the stores here don't get fall crop transplants in the stores until late Sept or early Oct, especially kale, collards, spinach, etc. so if you keep watching, maybe you'll see some in stores there in a couple more weeks. I also have seen some new seed displays updated in big box stores for fall crops with lots of spinach and green seeds. They've been out for about a month now. We just stay too hot in September for kale, collards and spinach to be planted until late in the month or in October, so the stores do seem tuned to the timing that's best for our weather down here. I imagine your stores up there do the same. Having said that, I get so tired of seeing Halloween and autumn merchandise hit the stores in August, and Christmas stuff in late Sept or early Oct. I wish they wouldn't rush the seasons so much. It still is summertime here! Amy, The groundhog thing at Worley's is hysterical---that's the first time I've ever heard of a groundhog getting up on a table and eating seedlings. Granted, I don't live in an area with groundhogs. Really, the only time I've ever seen groundhogs alive (or almost alive) is when we visited Tim's family in PA, and they are dead alongside the roadways there constantly---sort of like armadillos are in Texas and OK. I don't think I've ever seen a live one, except in videos, but I know they caused Tim's dad lots of yard and garden problems. Mandevilla is beautiful, but not cold-hardy here, so I don't grow them often. I used to grow one of the pink-flowered ones in TX in zone 8b, and occasionally (though not often), one would survive the winter. The ones they breed nowadays are not as vining (unless you choose one that vines a lot) and are more floriferous than the ones we grew in Texas in the 1980s and 1990s. They do put out an amazing number of blooms here in the summer. AFAIK, they are not grown from seed, but you can raise them from cuttings. Jennifer, You're welcome. Spinach and other greens are so easy here in fall and winter, but keep those chickens away! My chickens are obsessed with devouring every bit of kale that I plant, so I really have to be sure to keep that garden gate closed or there's no kale for us. Jen, I think my friends finally have gotten used to me and my black tomatoes, purple potatoes, etc. but it drove them nuts in our early years here that I just refused to grow veggies that were the "right" color. lol. A more colorful diet is a healthier diet so I seek out the oddball colors to make our diet as varied and healthy as possible. Nancy, I'm glad y'all made it safe and sound and am happy to hear Titan was a champ. You and GDW can laugh at me, but when I think of y'all now, I think of Titan as your child. I do believe the tough summer experience with his illness and all the extra care y'all gave him bonded you three into a tight family unit (and I hope the cat doesn't feel left out, lol). Kim, I used to be that way, but too many snakey experiences have caused me to learn to stay out of the garden as much as possible in late summer and early autumn, and I'm okay with that. Once I've canned, frozen and root cellared all I want to, then it is easier to stay out of the garden, even if I am abandoning some stuff that we could be eating fresh still. There's just a point where we don't need more than we already have. Encounters with venomous snakes just ruin the gardening experience for me, so I just let the garden muddle on along without me at this time of the year. I focus on stuff indoors until the nights get cool enough that the snakes are out less and less often and I can then return to the garden more (usually in October) to clean it up and get it ready for next year. I do venture in briefly, occasionally, to pick peppers. They just keep on keeping on. I've also got beans that I never picked that now are reseeding themselves along with some cowpeas, so there probably will be a late autum harvest from them. Morning glories are taking over my garden right now, and I don't really care. I can look at them from outside the garden and enjoy them.....Grandpa Ott's is just so gorgeous in bloom. Amy, How terribly sad. I cannot imagine the heartbreak (and never-ending pain) of losing a child. You just had to mention FB---I've been as absent there as I have been absent here lately---when I put down the electronic devices and pick up the paintbrush, I lose touch with everyone and everything, I guess. One of my childhood friends lost his firstborn child at 17 or 18 months to drowning---in a bathtub. I think that in a lot of ways, that's the sort of tragedy that a family never "gets over", if you know what I mean. How could they? There's always a metaphorical empty chair at the table that that child would have occupied. How sweet that y'all released balloons at the cemetary for his birthday. I hope this sort of memorial activity comforts your son's wife and her family, and all of you who love them. It is important for a grieving family to remember the one they lost---and, to me, the loss of a child is the worst loss of all. We all expect to lose our parents, our grandparents, our aunts and uncles...maybe a cousin or sibling somewhere along life's journey and that seems natural and fitting---it is the way of the world, after all, but we never expect to lose a child. There, I read everything and tried to respond to everything as much as I could remember to do so. I'm going to try to do a better job of staying caught up on everyone's activities this week. I've got The Weather Channel on right now and the news out of Florida looks so awful---the flooding, the power outages, the trees that are down, etc. I am so glad that so many people took this threat seriously and evacuated, but then the storm track shifted (forecasting remains an imprecise science) and some people who had fled their homes also got get hit hard in the areas where they are sheltering. It is too early for the death toll to be known yet. I think I've heard of 5 deahts so far, but am sure there will be more. There were 16,000 power crews massed and waiting at certain staging areas outside the state before the hurricane hit, and that included contractors to cut down trees and clear all that debris so that power can be restores. Hopefully the recovery will go smoothly. We are in an endless pattern down here at our house---cool early mornings, fairly hot afternoons, and no rain. The ground is cracking, and our lovely green grass is browning. Bah humbug! Why is it that rain in August means no rain in September? It was exactly the same way last year too---only I think September stayed hotter. I am not watering anything except my fig tree in its container. Everything else can sink or swim on its own. Dawn