Planting them deeper will help. A bamboo or metal stake pushed into the ground at time of planting for support is helpful -- tie the stalk to the support. If staking individually is too much trouble, then plant in clumps and use cage-type support rings that you find in some gardener-supply catalogs. Another option might be to plant several bulbs around a sturdy stake and fasten them all to one stake. Wind was the culprit in some of my deeply planted glads. A protected spot would be ideal, maybe not practical. Nell

I think everyone is in agreement Live oak are not used to heavy ice loads. Heck, most trees here are not. I also have noticed after a mild spring when there finally is a strong thunderstorm trees in general lose lots of branches. During a typical stretch with every other week storms you lose a branch here and there with probably the same overall loss. Now, stretch that out over a five year period and things are different I would bet. A tree grown in a sheltered location just is not forced to branch properly to hold the wind or ice loads one grown in the open is. Same if I shelter my kid his whole life then expect him to be good at sports. His body just will not have the support structure. Look at new home lots where a thin line of forest trees are saved. Many are damaged by their new found wind loads after living fine in the same spot for decades. But I think we are all in general agreement.

Hey busybee...the reason I gave the age I did for the initial bone DEXA scan is that a baseline test before much if any deterioration is considered to be a very good idea by many institutions. Onset of menopause rather than waiting till it ends is suggested. " . Following the onset of menopause, bone loss increases each year and can result in a total loss of 25%-30% of bone density in the first five to ten years after menopause" I went into menopause in my mid 40's so 50 was actually rather late for my test. The MD said I had " exceptional " bone density. Weight bearing exercises and diet and life style choices all made a big difference in my report I am sure. You are so right that the balance issue and core strength are very important. Starting young rather than trying to correct an existing problem is always best. But it is never too late to improve. This is such a great thread. c

Breezy -- is it too late for this question? I agree that wide are nice and do eliminate the wasting of space that dividing into two drawers creates, from two 'sources', from the fitting-things-around-edges source, and from the width-of-cabinet-sides source. Between these there is significantly less space in two 19.5" drawers vs one 39" drawer. But note that there is variable loss from the fitting-things-around-edges source depending on what you put in the drawer. That is, with big, shapely items like, say, skillets or lasagna pans + something else, there can easily be large, unused spaces around drawer walls -- the hard suitcase in a car trunk paradigm. But with smaller, more easily malleable items (say, oven mitts), there is less loss near the edges of the drawers as you can fill in that space more easily. So large drawers lend themselves more critically to things like pans than smaller items. That said, rhome's point about opening a vastly oversized item for something smaller is important, I think (not that I've lived with my kitchen, only started putting things in). Stuff shifts and gets lost horizontally the same way it can get lost vertically. If you can afford the additional drawer and can plan in advance where what goes and can therefore estimate big-enough sizes, that would be best. I think it was buehl, maybe plllog, who had a link to how they planned their kitchen to a fare-thee-well (sp?) with labels for what goes in which drawers. While over-the-top, I recommend that method! Because really that's the only way you can get close to sizing the drawers properly. Stand in your mind's eye where you'll cook what and think about what you need at hand, then put the drawer there -- and label it! I kept forgetting what I thought was going to go where. If you have a ton of oven mitts (which are big), you're really not going to want, probably, to share them too much with something else, if you can avoid it. Try shaping a drawer for them alone-ish. Maybe have a split stack in the second row as well? Note that the size of the split needn't be equal; could be, say, 12"/27", e.g. Other considerations: cost. Each additional drawer was another $100 or so for me. So two 19.5-ers cost more than one 39", counter-intuitively. And as was noted above, that big drawer even just *empty* is heavy - it necessitates the heavy-duty glides, which are an additional cost. Awkwardness opening thin drawer? I think that depends on how thin, what's in it, placement of handles, among other factors. I have a 5.5" drawer front which translates to a 3.5" interior drawer. That seems thin, and it's long, 31.5". There may be a teensy amount of torqueing, making one-handed opening a little hard. It's not bad and I imagine as the drawer gets heavier with stuff it will get better. I think placing the handles more centrally helps. But this is deeper than the 4" you're talking about. I am guessing that's the drawer front, not interior. For my frameless cabinets, you lose 2" from the interior height for both top drawers and bottom drawers, just 1.5" from height for drawers in the middle of the stack. Here's a picture (and please note the cutting board drawer which I just love): And then I have a 3-stack that's under a short counter with a 5.25" ext cab on top that translates to just 3.25" interior. That's enough, barely, to fit a saran wrap box, but as those things like to spring open, I'm not sure whether they'll get stuck in practice. Here's a picture -- for reference the middle drawer is 8"ext/6.5"int and the bottom is 12.5"ext/10.5"int. I'm embarrassed to say I am actually able to fill that bottom drawer just with plastics and metals and *I just love it*. There is enough room for them all to have their tops and sleeves and the like. All that stuff just drives me crazy and having it all splayed out in that giant drawer is just heaven. And BTW, I had never noticed those streaks on the drawer to the right. They are there IRL, but are much less noticeable, the flash highlighted them. They are colorings of the natural wood; just fine by me.: So ... I am worried that 4"/4"/4"/7" just might translate to too little interior space -- just something for you to look into. There is another picture of a 4-stack on my photobucket which I think you can get to if you're interested just by clicking on one of the above photos. And there's a picture there of a thin drawer underneath the MW/convection, but it's not long -- it works just fine at 5"ext/2.875"int x 24"w (designed just for the oven racks, but holding hot pads too). HTH