I had piles of shredded oak leaves that were mixed with kitchen scraps, grass clippings, and goat shed manure then turned and carefully moistened diligently for the first summer but which were still visibly chopped oak leaves after 3 years. And they were already 9 months to 4 years old when I built the piles because the house had sat empty a long time when we bought it. The oak leaf dust on the lawn from running the mower over all those leaves never really seemed to become one with the dirt either. If the weather was dry for a week, even at the very end of summer before the next crop of leaves was about to fall, the mower would kick up clouds of fine, brown, dust that smelled and tasted of oak instead of dirt. It was so bad I had to mow with goggles and a damp bandanna over my face. I'm sure you can compost oak leaves if you have a LOT of very HOT manure to mix them with. But in an ordinary pile of yard and garden waste its not so easy. They are as bad or worse than pine needles. People collecting others' bagged leaves should go easy on themselves and look for yards full of maple instead. :-)

the spiders will eat whatever is eating the holes in your plants. There are several thousand varieties of spiders so identification can be very tricky, even with pictures. All spiders can bite but MOST can't break the skin-their little fangs just are too little, brown recluses and black widows of course can, so can others. Just wear the gloves and be happy you have spiders. They are a sign of a healthy environment. Tally Ho!

No, you shouldn't be worried. Your spider is a yellow and black garden spider, Argiope aurantia. The one you have there now will die soon (they live a season) and the young will emerge in the spring and go their own way. You won't be overrun with spiders next season. I don't think I've ever seen more than two in my many-acre garden in a given year, and often don't see any, even when they've been around the previous year. They are large enough to eat some of the insects that do a fair amount of damage to the garden such as Japanese beetles and grasshoppers, but they don't harm people even if they do make you a bit uncomfortable. I tend not to disturb them, but I do enjoy seeing them catching and eating bugs. Enjoy the fact that your garden is healthy enough to have visitors like this.

Bustopher , thank you for the ideas ! I am expanding the bed this week to accommodate the roses , so I hope that helps . Unfortunately I am tapped out in the money dept so what I have coming is kinda all I can plan with for now . I do wish I could squeeze Olivia into an order somehow ! And I had the lady gardener and wish it had survived but it didn't . Hopefully what I do have can make a lovely bed ! Flowers .. I buy in bulk from American meadows or peaceful valley farms and usually the California mix or a cut and come again type . In late May I get someone with a farm tiller to fill up the strip in front of the house and then before it rains I go out and hand toss my seeds . I lightly walk over them but certainly don't get them all walked on. Then I only spend the first few weeks or so worrying about rain or dragging the hose out . They are very easy for me but I do plant so many ( one pound ) I'm sure i lose some . They love the intense heat we have here ! Does your climate get really hot ? I'm not sure if it helps but they seem to like it . So last year my photos show they were sprouting by May 28 and I have photos of my baby seated in them on July 11. They seem to come up quickly! I don't now them down til almost November and they die on their own so as many birds get seeds as I can and any straggling butterflies still have some food