Beginner Gardening: My worst garden spot -my walkway that everyone sees .Yikes!!, 1 by LadyAethelwyne

LadyAethelwyne wrote:
NatureLover1950,
Thank you for another great posting :-D I forgot to mention that this area might look overmulched because I got my arbor day trees last fall and decided, since nothing else would grow there, to use it as a tree nursery. They seem to be doing really well, I can't wait to transplant them in a year or so. I'm glad to hear of someone else who uses a lot of mulch- it is cool and pleasant in the spring here, but the summers are murderous and that's when the ticks and strawberry weeds take over!
I cleaned out my yard some today of leaves and the ground was pretty wet underneath and some flower leaves were bent over (ps-thank you imzadi for the advice on how far away to have mulch from plants- I was never sure about that, and the plants look a lot springier now that I've cleared the leaves away!). I love working in the yard in the spring, it's so cool and pleasant, though it got too cool by 3 p.m.
I saw a whole yard done in clematis in a garden magazine once, and I thought it was so beautiful! I got discouraged by the lack of growth from the ones I planted near the arbor, but I'm going to just grin, roll up my sleeves, and try again!

I'm so sorry about your loss of your stepdaughter. Having a rosebush in her memory sounds lovely. I saw a crying angel at Design Tuscano that's beautiful, though rather costly:
http://www.designtoscano.com/product/code/DB1111.do
I moved into my Granny's house in 2004 because she was sick and had to be in rehabilitative care at the nursing home. The home was in bad shape, lots of mold, so I redid one room completely for myself and started working on the rest of the house. This first garden I started in spring 2005 so she'd have something lovely when she came home, but she never did (died July 2005). I bought the house and made a memory garden in the south corner. It has a dog statue to remember my dog Beauty, and an angel and cross etc. I hope to make paving stones sometime with names of my grandparents and others I've lost. It looks really pretty in spring, but I need more white flowers for summer.
The reason I mention it is, the same year I planted it I tried a rose garden in my east side. I planted 7 bushes and only 4 survived. I planned it carefully: white, then white climbing roses, then yellow climbing, then pink, pink/yellow, and I can't remember the other 2. Well, the "white" one in my memory garden had a shocking dark pink rose, just like one on my Granny's rose bush that got mowed down by mistake and never came up. I thought it was Granny greeting me and telling me she was happy in Heaven, though my sister thought the garden center just made a mistake (cynic). The rosebush has never bloomed since, though, white or pink.