Sorry.

whew, what a day, learned a lot though :D I've posted the new pictures I took today of the big crape on the left over in the trees forum, it's not looking real good there. wondering if it needs to come out, so will see what they say. real quick, amazon, I DO appreciate the truth, wouldn't be here if I didn't want to hear it...and yes, I do have a good sense of humor, it's what's kept me alive! sad to say, that is a light there...you can see it on the tree forum post on ID of the crape mrytles post...and the "target" under it? that is a little rose bush that appears to want to live, surrounded by tin soldier thyme courtesy of my MIL. :D (kind of "ring around the posey" comes to mind) Brent, you put into words in your last post what I finally figured out this morning was the problem!!! thank you for that!!! the link you put in was awesome, and reinforced what finally hit me this morning...it's the plants!!! I've always bought them for the flowers. the 2001 picture always nagged at me, you pinpointed the problem with it, all the same size, texture, etc. and yes, the daisies did sort of tin soldier the look too...LOL, wasn't the best year, only one I could find though with flowers. on to what else I learned today.... I went outside this morning, armed with my camera and a heavy jacket...41 degrees, brr...127 pictures later (will not subject you to them...LOL), I took a good hard look at the house and yard. The siding guy came out tonight, did not get a good estimate, just a round ball park figure on averages...hubby was sick and asleep. It's not going to be cheap for sure, but this was from the high end company locally, and is excellent work. Did some more math, and its looking like with the siding, and interior work that needs done here, I'm thinking about 50 grand for all that. I could have my new kitchen for that much :( However, I think based on sale price, etc, that we can fully recover that much when we do sell. and that is with the highest price company here...but the warrenty, lifetime covers anything, is transferrable to new owners. Ok, so after looking at the pictures I took, with a new eye, I went to a couple of the local nurseries, as well as a big box store, to check out a list of plants I've gathered from this forum. WOW. you all need to stress to the clueless ones like me that we need to visit nurserys in the winter too! It was a whole new experience...the forms, textures, feel, are so different than what I see when I go in, leaves and flowers. I love flowers, therefore, bought flowers. Hmm. I do believe it finally hit me what backbone in a landscape really is. (and that landscape and garden are NOT the same thing) however, I still have no clue what this house is asking for. What I always envisioned here, will not be done due to moving (lets just say NO grass was going to be here when I was done), and while I'm trying to get that picture out of my head, there is nothing there to replace it with. I realize there will be no planting this spring around the house, the siding if we get financed, will be done this summer hopefully, possibly in time for fall planting with luck. So, i'm back at square one, empty slate, only with an idea to form and texture. I did discover in my walk this morning a lot of daylilies, six nandina's of all sizes, quite a few irises that survived the last few years of total neglect, and I do know I have two temporary (four year temp) beds of hostas that I saved. they should be good and ready to divide...and there is a LOT of lireope (sp???). I realize now that basic minimal landscaping is in order for selling with. Leads me to the following questions: 1. should I delete the bed under the two crape myrtles on the corner? or fill it in somwhat with hostas, daylilies, etc, there by saving me from spending any money there on plants? the yard will also be revamped and reseeded, etc. 2. the ring around the lightpost...I can't get rid of the light, so am not sure if I should just delete the plantings all together, or extend the bed on that side to include the light area? Plant it with??? I was thinking a couple hydrangea's, there was a big one in the corner there, but it died, think they won't get enough sun there now with the tree. Azaleas? far over planted in this area in my mind, and the camilla was finally cut down that overtook the house...was taller than the porch one year. I agree with you brent on the first post about low evergreens along the front, I've been looking at euonymus "golden" (did i get that right?), not sure how it will look color wise though? The house, most likely would be resided with something nice and um, boring like Natural Almond, as this company only has nine colors, and I'm not fond of any of them...the house is so big that i'm worried about anything of "color" being way too much. I don't want it to look like someone dropped an overgrown kid's building block on the lot, though it does look that way now actually. somehow I just can't see myself tossing in the "builders bushes" and calling it good. I ripped those out the day after we moved in. they were mostly dead anyway. so, back to square one, and i'm heading to bed. I think this is giving me a headache. thanks guys. sally ps. amazon, remind me some day to tell you my mulberry tree stories....i'd gladly have them :D though they ARE a mess. (hint...involved a slingshot, my neighbor, and my rear end)

Well aimee, it is not that you are safe with specific kinds of bulbs, but there are a few that can grow in clay quite well. From tulips there are so many breeds that it makes no sense to go through all of them, but most top sellers usually can take clay soils reasonably well. Regarding wild tulips however, they do not like to grow in wet rich clay. Some can appear, but they never get to the real glory and some times do not appear at all. Too heavy and too rich in nutrition for them - they would rather grow in a pile of sand, than in a rose bed. With narcissus it depends, I had a good success with the smaller varieties, big fluffy bloom ones often rot here - but they may do better for you with more dry climate. With crocus, giant ones should do ok, but I would advice against species ones, especially not the blue ones - unless it is from the crocus specialist and is specifically clay loving breed (there are selected few, but rather rare and difficult to obtain). You could try some fritilarias, but there are quite a few different kinds and I think only imperials were really clay tolerant (most wild species definitely are not, but they are small enough for small containers). Chionodoxas and scylles were ok for me in clay, but be warned, once you have them, it is impossible to get rid of them, same with muscari - there always will be a bulb left. English and Spanish bells are self seeding weed here. With iris, there again are a lot of kinds, bearded ones can be prone to rot if mulched or rhisomes covered in any other way, dutch iris can rot in clay as well, iris reticulata practically is hopeless in clay (unless you can find a spot where it gets little to no water whatsoever), siberic iris grows on anything really, there also are a few varieties that like to be submerged in water (some NA species among them, but I am not that familiar with them, too cold for them here). With wild lilies, I did not try henryi and speciosum here in soil, but species martagons do not do well - their hybrids however can be an option, since they like heavy loam if it has a good compost added to it. You could probably get away with some most generic Asiatic lilies - they are quite hard to kill really. Orientals and longiflorums however are not a good idea, although some of their hybrids can take a bit of clay. Also some lilies, for example orientals, like soils around Ph 4,5 and generally quite a few lilies like ericaceous conditions, so often they are not good to plant with the roses, which like the opposite most of the time. But if you got a bed of azaleas, rhododendrons, heather and other acid loving plants, they might be a good addition. Ph really is very important with lilies, since even if you got perfect structure, if the Ph is wrong, it does not matter if it is clay or sand, they will hate it.

OldTimeCarpenter, we all choose different things to spend our money on and what we choose doesn't give you enough information for you to assume we are rich, average or poor. Do you drink and/or smoke? I do neither of those which leaves me with plenty to spend on drains!!