Have one I planted last year and just purchased 4 more, One of those has been planted, which may have been a mistake, as we have had no measurable rainfall in 2 months and am expecing draconian watering restrictions to be implemented any day by the local water dept. They are macrophylla's and non-remontant (only blooms on last years growth). In your Zone, they would need winter protection to reliably produce blooms. My yellow leaf macs, Lemon Daddy & Lemon Zest, did not suffer any foliage damage during the Easter weekend sub-freezing temperatures(25°F.) and apparently little or no flower bud damage, as they are beginning to bloom. Some of the nearby macs, with typical green leaves, were completely defoliated, are slow to recover and will not bloom this year. Big Daddy suffered some foliage damage, but is now covered in emerging blooms. Since I am in Zone 7. this may not be very helpful to you, but if you can grow macs and get them to produce blooms, these will perform likewise. Rb

I saw that variety on Ebay, Rosie. It just doesn't look quite....real, I guess is how I'd describe it. And it reminds me of something - and it took a lot of thinking and thinking before I could come up with it. When I was a kid, my mother had these little plastic flower candle holders that she used on birthday cakes. They were sort of colored like LE-Hozjajka Mednoj Gory, double ruffled like that and it made me chuckle when I thought of them lit up as candle holders. I've purchased violets on Ebay, but I've never dared to go for any from overseas. Canada is about as adventurous as I've gotten - so far. But there is another Ukrainian violet on Ebay now from Ireland that has me sorely tempted: RS Korsar, see link: RS Korsar on Ebay Wouldn't you hate to invest 30 bucks or more (with shipping) on a plant - and have it arrive croaked? There are no guarantees on these. You pay your price and take your chances! I've also heard it said that many of these Ukrainian/Russian varieties are not grown out several generations before they're released and especially in the case of fantasies may be quite unstable. That said, there are quite a few other Russians that have me itching, they're so beautiful. But I've already maxed my AV pocket money for the month on a Senk's variety I've been wanting for ages, so I'll just have to wait a year or so and hope these new beauties will be available more easily here in the States someday. Sigh!

I cannot recall if I have seen this exact model or not as we have been refrigerator shopping for the last couple of weeks and I feel as though I have seen every fridge on the market! I do remember looking at multiple JennAir fridges with the black/charcoal interior and I think it looks lovely but I keep almost squinting at it. I feel like I'm looking in a car with black interior at nighttime, if that makes sense? It does not seem as though it would really show more smudges but then again it depends on what type of smudges you are referencing. A black car is beautiful when it is first washed but just a bit of dirt and it surely shows but a white car can drive through road construction and still look fairly nice. The drawers, I believe, can be opened individually with only one door open. Hope what I can remember helps a bit, sorry I can't be sure about this specific model but JennAir does have more than one model with this interior.

We get small orders rattling around in a huge box, as some others have said. You should have seen the box when my wife ordered a Japanese thimble! I don't recall ever getting a broken or leaky package. Guess we've been lucky. But Anglophilia, I'm a jam maker and seedless raspberry sounds wonderful. I'm going to have to try that....I mail jam to family out of state and they always get new tea towels with it because I put each jar inside a sealed zip bag within a second sealed zip bag with a paper towel or two. Then I wrap tea towels around each jar and rubber-band them. I use a box small enough to fit snugly. It doesn't look like a professional packaging job, but it protects everything and insures against messes.