Hi, The pond liner should not be a problem. Do you have plants in it and if so what kind? What about fish? You could always keep the pump running and it would not freeze except maybe around the edges. Any hardy water lilies can be dropped to the bottom of the pond and will come back when it warms up. At 2' deep with the pump going goldfish could live. Just quit feeding now and they will enter a state of suspended animation, so the speak. If you have any other questions about pond plant hardiness or ponds please feel free to e-mail me directly or post on the thread. Loretta

Thank you all for the warm welcome. I enjoy looking up the Nth American maps and seeing where you all live. I love learning about other parts of the world. Many people who visit Australia do not make it over to Perth. It is a lovely small city and there is much to see in the state but it does require quite a bit of time and many hours of travelling to see enough. Things are much closer together in the eastern states and easier to move between cities. Perth is known as the most isolated capital city in the world for good reason. I will post more pictures soon. I have a friend staying for a few days so have been out and about quite a bit and sitting up talking until late at night so not much computer time. The folded flower pattern is call Mayflower by Michelle Pearson of Raggedy Stitches, a Perth quilt shop. The autumn stars one was from a magazine and called morning or evening stars I think. I made up the corners when I couldn't get the piano keys to go the way I wanted. Once again, thank you for the lovely welcome. This is the first forum I go to each morning and love all the pictures and ideas. Beth

Thanks for the additional photos and the bed measurements. I am fairly sure from looking at your photos that your house doesn't face due north, since in all your photos there is sun either on the front of the house (first photo, taken either early morning or late afternoon) or on the bed itself (last two photos, taken an hour or two before or after noon, based on the shadow from the house next door.) So you should probably go to Google Earth (which always has north up like a map) and find your house to figure out what direction it's really facing before we go any further on plants. It looks more like it gets close to a half day of sun and even when in shade, the shade will be bright, so you have more flexibility on what you can plant beyond shade plants. I'd still love a photo from across the street or plot plan that shows how deep the lot is and how wide, so I can figure out where to put a tree or two which are the only things large enough to ground your house and how to pull the landscape out some to also help ground the house. I would also love to be able to see both corners to see how to frame the front of the house, perhaps some flowering small trees or a taller spire of an evergreen. I still think that a more vase-shaped medium sized tree such as a Heritage birch would look great offset from the house, both over toward the right side and well out into the yard. Plant it so that the ultimate width won't overflow into the neighbor's yard. I am thinking generally that the front beds need to be made just a bit deeper and planted with two rows of shrubs and in front of that a row of perennials in just 2 or three colors with several plants per group for mass effect. One row of shrubs should be all one kind of evergreen that will stay below window height or shorter, one a long flowering shrub such as one of the reblooming Hydrangea macrophyllas such as your current Endless Summer (since it is doing well) or one of the longest blooming, and then a front row of perennials in just 2 or three colors. Depending on the evergreens and the flowering shrubs, you might have either closest to the house (though plant leave at least 2 feet with no plants behind the ultimate shrub size for maintenance and to prevent house damage.) On the walkway side, the perennials can be on the side away of the walk away from the house, continuing across the entire front in a straight line but filling in back to the shrubs on the right side of the house. This will give you something with enough mass to be visible against the house from the road (unlike the current one of this and one of that), and walking to the house will be through the garden rather than in front of the garden. Look at the first photo in thisthread from the blog of a wonderful landscape designer in the Detroit area, Deborah Silver, for something of the effect I am thinking of for your house's shrubs. She used H. paniculata Limelight, a taller hydrangea that is only just starting to bloom here, but you can choose one that will reach a height that come to just about your window sill level. The evergreens provide some color and structure for the five or so months that the Hydrangeas are bare, but don't need to be a formal sheared hedge as this yew hedge is. They can be a looser, naturally low growing evergreen. For your proportionately taller, narrower house (compared to the one in the blog), I would plant the trees off the corners, whether small flowering trees or taller narrow spires and a larger tree off to the side farther out into the yard toward the road as I mentioned above. You might even consider a medium hedge out closer to the road (though not close enough to be in conflict with winter snow plowing) to help bring higher the "ground feel" from the road (which looks like it must be lower than the house) to balance the house height. Something low maintenance with flowers such as some of the newer low care shrub roses or rugosa roses, or Hydrangea paniculata might work. For your current plants, move them to the back or side yard if you have a place for them, or advertise them as free if the taker digs them.

Yep, Blue spruce are very susceptible to pests & diseases when they are outside their native range. It seems the number of issues with this species has only increased in the past few decades. For blue form, I would go with any of the cultivars of concolor or koreana. There are several cultivars to choose from, depending on the dimensions you are looking for. 'Blue Cloak', 'Archer's Dwarf', and 'Kings Gap' are 3 really nice cultivars of concolor. Koreana is most well known for it's "white curled" needled cultivars such as 'Silberlocke', 'Silver Show', and 'Ice Breaker' (maybe the most sought after dwarf conifer), but there are also some nice blue forms as well. Wittboldt-Muller nursery has been somewhat obsessed with creating the greatest blue form of koreana for sale as christmas trees. They have crossed it with lasiocarpa (Sub-alpine fir) and even applied radioactive cobalt treatment to form some of the best cultivars including 'Blauer pfiff', 'Blue Emperor', and 'Blue Magic' just to name a few. Beyond the firs, Picea engelmannii 'Blue Angel' and 'Bush's Lace' have both done well for me so far, but I have concerns about recommending them due to their very close relationship with the blue spruce. Any of the hardy cedrus do well here, such as Cedrus deodara `Feelin Blue' or Cedrus atlantica 'Glauca'. In addition to those, The owner of Katsura gardens in plymouth, ma (best conifer nursery around), has a ~15yr old Abies numidica 'Glauca', that has become my new favorite conifer. I have no evidence of long term success of this species, but it seems to do quite well. Another one that has caught my attention lately is Cunninghamia lanceolata 'Glauca'. It might be marginally hardy, but the really interesting thing about this one is that it is regenerative, which is quite rare, and as far as I known, unheard of for any other blue variety of conifer. So, like yew, this species can be cut right down to a stump, and it will regrow. Making this a nice blue alternative to green yew foundation plants seen in front of everyone's home, will still allowing for annual sheering to keep it's size in check, and is said to have very good shade tolerance.