I always do color (and texture, and shapes...) schemes in my -and others- garden. And no colour is out of my palette,even bright and vibrant yellows, reds and oranges. Contrasts should be important too, because pale colour schemes, and especially one-only colour schemes, are prone to become boring and featurless if not really well composed. By the way, color can be important when you have limited space available, and many Roses to grow togheter :o)) - right color combinations are able to enhance the beauty of each rose and set off their puculiar qualities at the best. I do love especially to put togheter two climbing or rambling roses, both in color blend or in contrast: for instance, I have 'Belle Portugaise' and 'Clg. Cramoisi Supérieur' on an Olive tree, 'Purezza' with 'Cooper Burmese' (same color, very different shape) on the working shed roof A blend of 'Lamarque' and 'Jaune Desprez' in early October at the edge of the "white and blue" garden Just a few more pictures on the subject 'Le Vésuve' and 'Archiduc Joseph/Monsieur Tillier', this is a part of a larger and complex color scheme with grey and purple leaved plants, salmon, pale orange / coppery tones, and a few bright pink spots. 'Sally Holmes' and "Lady Plymouth" (ID questioned, probably a compact clone of 'Lady Hillingdon') in a scheme of white, light yellow buff, grey and light blue Ciao! Maurizio

Parma .. well they are producing eggs yet, other wise I could send you some eggs. Let's see .. I could send you a big bag of Three Cool Chicks Gardening Gold .. otherwise known as a big bag of chicken poop. :D *LOL* Or .. you could hold out for eggs. ;) Most people think Clover is the prettiest. I think my favorite looks wise is Olive, I love her dark head and fuzzy face. I think Hazel has the nicest personality, she's very sweet. Clover just cracks me up, she's a total nut .. she comes out with some of the strangest sounds you've ever heard and is such a drama queen! I'll hear her out there griping about something and I always have to go see .. she makes a huge fuss out of nothing, but it's pretty amusing! Pam .. chickens are fairly easy to raise. When they are babies they have a greater chance of disease and it's not all that uncommon to lose a couple. We started out with four and lost one on Easter morning, not a great way to start the day! Most people feed them medicated feed to start off with to help stave off infection or disease, then switch them over to non-medicated about 8 weeks in once they have a better immune system. Basically when they are small chicks you keep them warm with a heat lamp, feed them good chick grower feed, keep their brooder ( ours was made out of a cardboard box ) very clean and make sure they have fresh water. We started ours out in the house since it was spring and still chilly .. they need to be kept very warm for several weeks until their feathers come in, you decrease the temp by each week as they grow. We moved ours out into their hen house at 10 weeks old with their heat lamp for nights, but we live in NC and it had warmed up a lot by then. You continue to feed them grower feed and baby grit until they start to lay eggs. Grit is ground stone bought at the feed store, since chickens don't have teeth they need this to help digest/grind their food. Then you switch them over to layer formula food and adult grit. The layer formula has more calcium in it and helps them form their eggs. Other than that they can have most fresh fruit and veggies as treat, they also like plain yogurt a lot .. mine love clipping from my herbs garden too. There are guidelines on the internet for how much room the chickens actually need, but most of the time the guidelines run too small. Ideally they need a fair amount of room for their coop, but not huge .. the girls coop ( house ) is 6' x 8' .. that's pretty large by most standards for three chickens. Their run ( yard ) is 8' x 10' and they are pretty comfortable in that. They have the full run of both during the day, at night they go into their coop when it start to get dusky out. I shut the door between the coop and the run when they go to bed, just for extra protection against predators although their run is built like fort knox. *LOL* We have dogs, so we can't let them free range, but if you can .. that's the best for them as long as the are protected from predators. Since we live in NC we don't get into the 20's but a handful of times a year, 10 F is maybe a once a year thing. So at night to start off with I'll leave their heat lamp on, if it's going to dip colder .. I'll probably plug in an electric heater for them, but that will only be a few times a year here. An adult bird fully feathered can do 30's - 40's no problem, but I'll still probably supplment their heat some. In the summer they can over heat in our climate, if it's going to get above 90F .. I plug in a fan for them just to move the air and make sure they have lots of fresh, cold water. I clean their whole coop and run once a week, with a quick, couple second spot scoop under the roost every day ( the poopiest part ). I then put down new wood shavings. Also before putting down new bedding I put down stall dry, which is made out of demetrius earth. It helps keep the fly population down and makes their run and coop fresh .. it doesn't stink out there and chickens poop can be very smelly, the stuff is great. When I clean out their run/coop and bring the wood shaving poop mixture over to my composting bins and chuck it right in. :) All in all it's not very hard to take care of them .. much easier than dogs and cat .. I have five dogs and one cat.

Yes wedding planning is exhaustive, I just helped DDIL plan their wedding for 167 people in 62 days.(no rush other than the venue they wanted was fully booked thru 2008 finally in Oct the venue told us the holiday week was open, so they picked New Years Eve) We were just talking last night and she is so happy we did it all in a short time, because you can really stress over every darn detail, and there are SO many details. By having a short planning time you have to make a decision without being wishy washy. Now we are having wedding withdrawal. So enjoy the time you have, It is so fun. Keep us informed of all the plans as they come along,

Your husband is a very good man for wanting to be there for his friend!!! Your husband will be a good distraction right before because it's real scary. His friend might not want anyone there the first day or two after the surgery while in the hospital. Everyone is different but my husband went into full panic mode after waking up to pain and tubes everywhere. He had to be restrained. He didn't really want anyone seeing him like that. One thing I wasn't prepared for and didn't read much about was the overwhelming emotional side of it all post op...once he got out. If I didn't know he loved me before I sure knew after. He was very weepy and thankful for me...cried a lot and was briefly even clingy. This was very much out of character to his proper English self. However, after an over six hour operation I guess maybe it's normal (?) They are glad to be alive, glad the worse is over and coming down from a lot of drugs. I personally wouldn't stay more than two days once the friend gets home. If asked maybe your husband could stay longer.