Nursery plants are grown in shade or glass houses, given fertilizer with every watering, given filtered water, provided precise temperatures for optimal fast growth. Then suddenly they are sitting on hot asphalt at a big box store, get snapped up by a customer, and taken home to less-than-protected, less-than-perfect conditions. And they are shocked, the foliage starts looking bad, and the rose stops blooming. It may be nothing you did, and may not be your soils fault at all. Give them a recovery time. They must adjust to different water, extremes of temperature, new soil, insects, disease pressure. They must grow a root system in the soil, which takes a plant considerable effort. The more perfect conditions they were produced in, the more of a shock normal garden conditions are going to be. Plants used to be grown in the open and experienced conditions similar to the conditions they would get when taken home and planted. But then the plants would not look "perfect" and flawless. They might be a little chewed, and have a yellow leaf or two. Nowadays, plant production is so fine-tuned and so much is known about how to "pump up" plants to look absolutely gorgeous for a few days so people will buy them. But they don't get those ideal conditions even from very experienced gardeners when they are planted out in the real world. So what happens is what you are seeing. The roses can bounce back and look good again with good care and patience.

thanks deck guru! How about the pre-treat from, I guess what is mill glaze? Will try to post before/after pictures. And to ask that which I didn't in my earlier post...California Redwood color? What kind of name is that? What... is there Sahara Redwood species? I sometimes wish these companies would just tell it like it is...light redwood, dark redwood, very dark redwood, or even jsut red!

I've been thinking long and hard about the many good critiques that have been shared in this thread and I've made a first pass at a modification. First the image and then the explanation: The oven and the microwave have been relocated. The oven is now under the cooktop. I feel like an idiot for basically replicating a range, paying double the money for the same functionality, but that cursed wok on the cooktop is going to cost me a pretty penny - cooktop + wok + oven instead of just range + wok. I also lose the flexibility of having a kitchen that's workable for someone is a wheelchair but if that fate ever befalls me I can simply move the oven back to the original location in the wall cabinet, lower the cooktop and sink and then I've got a working kitchen that's good for a disabled person. The design can be modified without too much trouble if the need ever arises. So, now that the oven is underneath the cooktop all of the pots that I wanted handy for cooking had to find a new home. They're now in the island where the recycling drawers were. That was easy. They're still handy, behind me instead of below the cooktop. The microwave is now immediately below the countertop in the peninsula with enough space to have a cabinet drawer underneath the microwave. This is a pretty handy place for the MW because it's right across the aisle from the fridge and just a step more removed from the cooktop/oven. Now as I enter the kitchen I can grab something from the fridge, pop it into the MW, and then I can proceed to the banquette or take the food out of the kitchen. All of the bulk grains and baking supplies are now relocated between the microwave and the wall cabinet which used to house the MW/Oven combo. The side of the island facing the peninsula now has a top drawer and 4 vertical drawers underneath which will hold all manner of baking sheets/pans. The sheets are close to the bake prep area and they don't need to be close to the oven - I will transport what needs to be baked either to the oven or to the wood fired pizza oven. The wall cabinet now stores two recycling bins, canned food, less frequently used baking equipment, and other odds and ends. My fear was having a useless section of counter/cabinets attached to the peninsula, but as I thought about how the space would be used, it can still function as a secondary prep zone but with the secondary sink on the island, it functions well as the bake zone and all the equipment is close at hand. The suboptimal aspect that arises from this new layout has to do with recycling and garbage disposal - it's now a walk to get rid of stuff. Similarly, if I want canned good or boxed goods, it's a walk from the cooking area to this storage area. However, these inconveniences are not as mission critical as the impracticalities of the original plan - the use of the oven and microwave in the old layout were more of a burden than the need to get canned goods or to dispose of recyclables. Here's the exit question for everyone (besides anything new that you can find to comment upon): What are the inconveniences of having a microwave underneath a counter? I'm used to using microwaves either at counter level or in the upper cabinets.

One example: I was buying hanging plants at WalMart and I couldn't reach/take them down to check them out. A young clerk, maybe 18 years old, came to help me. He took several plants down, looked each one over, picking out any fallen leaves, and putting them back if they didn't look good. Finally he settled on two and said he thought they were the best. We chatted all the time. I was surprised and pleased that he did all that. I had potting soil, bird seed, etc. in the cart and he moved everything around so the plants wouldn't get mashed. Then he pushed the cart to my car, and as I opened the trunk, he arranged everything to protect the plants. When he closed the trunk and was ready to go back to the store, I thanked him and told him to tell his mother that she had raised a gentleman. He grinned a big smile and said he would do that! There are still good kids out there. Kindness begets kindness. Sue