You can divide the driveway into "rooms" with "walls" of raised beds or occasional plants in large pots. Your firepit patio area is one of those garden rooms. This is an excellent place for raised bed "walls." You might also use an outdoor rug to delineate the space -- or if the budget will stretch that far, put down some sand or crushed rock (or whatever the experts say is appropriate) to even out the asphalt, and add pavers to make the "patio." The cheap pavers I buy at Lowe's for stepping stones are just under $3.00 per square foot. Probably at the right time of year, theyd be on sale. If that's beyond the budget, try Craigslist, Freecycle, your local Habitat for Humanity store, etc., for whatever someone's giving away or selling cheaply. If you see a building being demolished, ask if there are any bricks or pavers you could have (this saves on their dumping cost). Mention it to everyone, and you'll have a better chance of finding something. I've seen photos of hardscape made from mixed types of bricks and/or pavers. To me, it seems to look best if you either have a pattern (for example, one type in the center, another on the outside) or mix everything really well. However, since you'd be working on a hard surface, IÂm assuming it would be difficult to do this unless all your different pavers/bricks were the same thickness. What are you growing in the raised beds? Veggies, flowers? Is there a purpose for the raised beds other than to disguise and make use of the old driveway? That purpose might be a consideration in designing the "garden." Plot out possible arrangements on graph paper and see what works best with the space you have. You can cut different-sized beds from colored paper and move them around the graph paper. To avoid boring rows, use L-shaped beds with a path that meanders back and forth between them. Have beds of different sizes and/or heights. Add a change of pace with a large pot in the corner between two raised beds. Or a birdbath at the end of a bed or in a small open area. Or in a larger space, a secondhand garden bench. Add surprises with an occasional bit of garden art (itÂs okay to make your own). Karen makes a good point about disguising the boundary between the former driveway and the rest of the yard: try to create opportunities to cross the drive and be on one side facing across it, rather than opportunities to walk and look along it. You might even create complete barriers between sections, whether with plants or something else, requiring a person to step onto the adjoining steps to get by them. If the wooden deck doesnÂt border the entire driveway, another way to do this would be to place some of the raised beds so they are partly on the driveway and extend a few feet beyond the driveway. Or plant a tree next to the driveway that will hang over the driveway and blur the boundary. With the right tools, you could even excavate part of the driveway and plant a tree there! A possible answer for the leaking-dirt problem is to make mulch "paths" between the raised beds. When the mulch decays, add it to the beds. [You may be able to get free mulch from utilities pruning around power lines; or ask your countyÂs Cooperative Extension Service for possibilities in your area.]

Thanks, Here's a picture of my trellis garden which I made out of recycled materials. The brick is actually cement from the inground pool that we removed. We had so much lying around that we had to find creative uses for it. So we flipped it upside down and stacked it to form the raised bed walls. I bought the trellis on the right for $1 and had to find a use for it so I built a frame out of recycled wood and got the paint free at a reuse center. I think that it turned out good.

Gatormom, I have container water gardens all over the place. They never turn into stagnant, mosquito infested messes. Once you have the plants balanced (not hard to do) and a couple of guppies in them, they are good to go. The guppies eat the mosquito larva, and the oxygenating plants keep the water relatively clear. You can top it off every other day or so, or even run it over a bit, if you want to change out some of it. I never use pumps or filters on my urns and tubs that I raise pond plants in. Here are a few pictures for you to see what I mean: This is a large, galvanized tub that I keep taro, rush, papyrus and dwarf water lilies in. I add black food coloring to make the water look deeper and more reflective. It also keeps algae growth down. This is an urn I had a potted canna in last year. You can see that I had hornwort floating in the water. (You can buy it at any aquarium place, including PetSmart.) It is a good oxygenator, and it gives the baby guppies (and there are always baby guppies) somewhere to hide. Here is the canna I'm growing in the urn this year. It really is not as hard as you might think, and during the summer, it is especially nice, because the plants never wilt or dry up. I plan to add several more container water gardens around the yard this year. I'm going to sink a big black tub in the ground and grow a lotus in it. Marcia

I use a solar fountain. I own misters and drippers as well, but the solar is the one that stays. For a dripper, you either have to have a hose running across your yard to the bath and rig something to hold the hose, or get tubing and bury it, and if your bath is on a pedestal, hide the tubing. I did have the 2 way connector/buried tube system at my previous house but never set it up at my newer home. I even had an irrigation timer on the dang thing so it went off daily, but I use an in-ground bath and it re-filled the evaporated water. nmgirl is correct on the bath depth to have a solar fountain. This was something I miscalculated when I ordered one. The pump must always be fully submerged and that s about 4". I bought it for the in ground bath, which is just a 6x4 textured pond liner with flat rocks on the edges (which I HIGHLY recommend if anyone is interested - biggest bird draw in my yard easily), but its only 2" deep. I had to dig a "deep" spot under it to suit the pump. In a regular bird bath you'd need a deep bath with rocks to make it shallow enough for the birds, making it harder to clean. Also, the pumps have these absolutely useless tiny suction cups on the bottom to hold it down. I had to rig rocks over it to keep it from floating. It took some messing with to get right but once in place, it goes off daily on it's own, just add sunlight. I do have to clean out the filter or it runs funky but I clean the bath anyway, so no big deal. I like it, birds like it, and the little fountain is actually pretty funny. I call it my landscape water feature. With owning all of the products I have, the solar fountain is the one I went to the trouble of setting up right away. Soon as last frost passes, I'll set it right back up.