Sorry you couldn't get there. The weather was perfect and we had a good time. We'll count on seeing you at the fall swap. Alice

Hi lovetogrowflowers. I don't think you are bothering anyone. Lucy is right, try not to stress yourself out. Take deep breaths. LOL. I think your plan for the two potted ones are perfect. I read in one of your earlier post asking about if the crawl space was ok and someone I believe said yes. For me, I WOULD strip the leaves first. The brug will be trying to take care of the leaves instead of useing its energy to go dormant. Plus you wouldn't want bugs to sneak in on a leaf and spend the winter eating your brug. :( As for the one in ground...well people cut back or don't cut back for different reasons. One of the biggest I think is for safety and the health of the plant. During the winter the brug branches will freeze so they cut them back so there is less of a chance this will happen. Who wants a mushy rotting brug in spring? How tall is the brug you still have in the ground? How close to the ground is the Y? The experts can chime in if this is a bad idea, but how about if you...1.Stip the leaves. 2.Cut off only the top green tips. (Save them) 3.Mulch as high as you can get it, at least to the Y if it's close to the ground. 4.Cover the brug with a REALY big rubber trash can or tub. 5.Maybe even cover that with an old blanket. Or would that be over kill? The cuttings you could take in and root them. Hopefully none of that was bad advice. Me and Lonny are newbies too. This will be our 2nt winter. We killed one of the two brugs we had last winter. But that was because we brought them in and tried to keep them growing. This year we brought all in again. This winter we have many more, plus young ones. We made a Brug room and have been learning lots. So we are going to give it a try. If they had been bigger, we would have left them out in ground to go dormant. Now that I have writen a novel.(sorry, long winded) Try not to worry, you brought them back to health and they are doing well enough to be around to overwinter, so I think you are doing well. Kim

Mercy!, girl, don't worry about the swap; we'll be here when you return. You need to do this, & your friend will be so grateful for your company & support. sending her powerful thoughts for strength & vitality.

I did tiling for the first time when I tiled my backsplash and I can give you some advice from one beginner to another (not meant to replace the advice of a pro, but just might be some things that a pro takes for granted since they are good at what they do). IMO the way to get a professional looking job is to: 1) take your time. It's not going to go quick, that comes with practice. It took me a week to do my backsplash, a pro would have done it in a day, but I got a professional look. 2) use spacers. If there are no lugs on your tile to give the proper spacing, use spacers. I will never forget watching some DIY show, maybe weekend warriors, where the guy was like "I don't need to use spacers, I have a good eye." Oh what a crappy install THAT turned out to be. Again this is a practice thing, someone who does this all the time might be able to do it without spacers but you don't have that much practice so use them. 3) never work with someone who doesn't have the same standards you do. Tiling is not necessarily a 2 person job. 4) Try out one of those cheapie tiling kits at home depot - the one that comes with a cheap, half circle shaped piece of tin for spreading thinset. I have kind of small hands (definitely smaller than the average man) and found that this tool was MUCH easier for me to control than the larger trowel. Sure, you can't spread as much at one time but see #1. Even with the trowel, the thing is notched to make sure you get the right amount of thinset on the walls. Use the right size notches (maybe bill can help you with that and also some tips for applying). 4) Buy more extra than you'd need for a pro and don't be afraid to use it... to re-cut anything that needs to be re-cut etcetc.