Wow, not nearly as much abundance here in the high desert. We're lucky to see a woodpecker once in awhile, starlings are prevalent as are sparrows, and, sometimes chickadees, as well as robins. I love them all, but would love to attract more. We put out feeders and have a bath for them, too. I really want to get a bat house put up this year to help with mosquitoes.

The big thing with our yard is it's big and full of weeds. Under a lot of it is some decent grass. My brother says if we keep it watered, the grass would take over and the weeds would die because they don't like the wet, BUT, this is desert. I cannot bring myself to use that much water AND, since we don't have a sprinkler system, it gets to be quite a chore to drag hoses all over the place. I think I am going to call a service to see what it would take for them to spray the weeds, esp. the foxtails as they are such a menace to pets and we had tons of them last year. Then maybe we can decide what else to do. The weeds grew to over 6 feet because they got away from us when Rog was unable to mow. Their skeletons are still standing in the backyard. With just the two of us, it is an overwhelming thought to get rid of all of them and I know of a service here which advertises organic removal. (We'll see.)

I have a very brave and hardy Russian sage near the back door. (That's not mine. Wish it was!) It has a wonderful minty smell to it. In front my iris need to be moved, but are bravely coming up, as are my tansy (everyone has them and the R. sage as they grow without any maintenance to speak of out here. The tansy also has a tangy, lemony-verbena type scent. My catnip is coming up and I think my clematis is, too. It will be the third year for it, if it does. Oh, and my flax is also sending up frothy fronds amidst the blankety-blank perennial weeds in my flower bed.

Maggie, I will see about that vinegar thing for the weeds in the flower bed. I think the vinegar would be good out here anyway because our soil is heavily alkaline, so the acid might balance it out nicely. I have a few perennials which may come back up IF I didn't bury them too much when I dumped all of my potted annual pots out in the flower bed last fall. I've raked it a little bit, but I haven't seen them coming up, yet. I figured it would be a good way to fill in one end which was sloped...it is now almost level AND would also add nutrients to the old soil, etc.

We don't rake up our leaves and we use a mulching mower, so everything gets put right back on the grass, but I think we still need to do some feeding, etc. this year. We did spend a fair amt. getting our trees trimmed, even had a huge one taken down, so our gardening budget is kind of shot. I might be lucky just to have a couple of hanging pots this year.

One thing I am determined to have though is a potted veggie garden on tables which are the right height for me to reach easily. I met an old man, once, who had a wonderful garden that way. It was so easy to take care of and yielded an amazing array of good veggies. He had most of his stuff planted in old coffee cans! Another old man had a veggie garden planted completely in sand. Nary a weed, beautiful hillocks of potatoes, etc. and so clean and crisp looking. It was a wonder.

Great thread, thanks!