Mom, do I get $1 for effort?

My mom is the coolest. (Happy early Mother's Day, by the way!) All through elementary school, high school, college, and even grad school, she would give me a dollar for every A I got in a class. Yes, even as recently as a couple of years ago, I could count on that buck! How cool is that? Even in these 'tough economic times', you can still get an ice cream sandwich for a dollar.

I just finished an adult education class in sustainable landscape design which was AWESOME. Because it was adult ed, there were no grades - and it was very cool to be able to not do my homework sometimes (something that would have caused me great stress in graded courses!) But I did my homework most weeks anyways, and the final product is this master plan for our bungalow landscape. Ken says I get an A for effort, so maybe that's dollar-worthy? It's being turned into a blueprint by the intructor right now - but this is the actual plan.


The big circle that overlaps the house and patio/deck is the existing, giant (about 40 foot or more) Norway Spruce, the trunk of which will come right up through the deck. And we'll be building another pergola soon - once we find another deal on cedar. (I have a lead...)

The class was fantastic, and we are really happy with the resulting plan, which had input from Ken and expert advice of the class instructor. We went with the whole bungalow theme (who would have guessed, right?) Here's a great site I found with lots of good advice on bungalow gardens. We've got lots of native plants, plenty of berries (including my mom's favorite, elderberry!), relatively inexpensive plants, and worked with the site conditions and plants we have as much as possible. So now we're really ready to get started digging up the yard! More details later as things progress.

And mom, if you send the dollar, I'll be buying a packet of shasta daisy seeds with it - we need over a hundred plants!!!