Yes, Bill, it's a mystery why some p*lants grow and some don't. I think that it is just so much more complicated then we can see, how plants thrive. Yet it appears to us that p*lants grow so simply. Quite the conundrum. That is very interesting about your lilac. I never had anything growing under it, so maybe I will try that some time. Claire, I am putting Thalia on my list for the fall. I think I am going overboard on daffodils lately. [g] They look so small when you first plant them, but they really fill out into large patches after a few years. I moved a patch into an area with not enough sun in the fall and it had no blooms at all on it this spring. So I think I am running out of enough sun. The Haweras are very cute and not so much dying foliage to put up with either. I did see the plant support and wondered if you had it in place for something that hasn't grown yet. [g] That Dicentra GoldHeart really catches my eye every time I see it. Really stands out. Wow, when that gets full grown! I really like Pieris and I hope I can keep them going in my g*arden. I fear I am too dry for them, but I water a lot, so maybe.

I like the New Venitian Gold. I too have to keep my outdated oak cabinets. But with the Persian Brown granite I selected, they will look fine. We are in the middle of our remodel. This site has been invaluable. Budget is probably the most important consideration for most. Keep things in perspective. Good luck and post after pictures.

LOL I saved a photo that a special ed. child did of an angel. She looks like she has wings and BOOBS! When her teacher asked her what "those" were - she looked at her very patiently and said, "That's her ARMS!" LOL

I went to a copyright and licensing seminar back in March, given by a copyright lawyer. His focus was on two things - website owners and folks in the music industry - because those are the two most likely to blow the copyright law and not know it. A photo is owned by the publication or person who took the photo, regardless. If you find a photo in a magazine or on a website, you are supposed to ask permission before saving it and putting it on your own website or someone else's. GW should ask the owner before putting the photo in its gallery, even if the GW rules tell you that posting a photo in the message board gives them permission to do that. (Makes me glad that I use Tripod and have to give folks a link.) If you find a photo online someplace and want to share it, the safest and most legal way to do so is to LINK to it. The same goes for whole articles and recipes that one finds on the web. You can print them out for your own use, but you aren't supposed to highlight-copy-paste into a forum such as this one. It's better to link to the article or recipe. That's the way I understood the lawyer. But I'll give you a little experience - after sitting in that seminar, I removed quite a few of the articles we had posted in our website without permission. Bear in mind that most of the articles were 35-40 years old. Then I started emailing the copyright owners for permission to reprint their articles online. I sent out a dozen requests AND HAVE GOTTEN NO ANSWERS. I figure, the magazines thought I was NUTS to ask for permission to run a 35 year old magazine article. So asking for permission sometimes is a lesson in patience and/or futility! DonnaR/CA