Hi dssguy, In my opinion, 5 inches is much too close together for the health of the plants, and overcrowded zinnias can lose all their lower leaves and look rather "ratty". Incidentally, that second picture looks like a really good trial garden, but those zinnias could be one of the dwarf varieties like Magellan or Dreamland. The Zaharas are nice, but I think they would have somewhat smaller flowers and narrower leaves. Whatever they are, they look impressive. Benary's Giants were bred for cut flowers, and they are typically grown as a row crop by market gardeners who simply harvest the blooms for sale to the Florist trade. Market gardeners really don't care how the zinnias look in the field, as long as their blooms look saleable. You can grow Benary's Giants for landscape use, but I would space their plants more than a foot apart. You might look to your seed packets for guidance on how far apart to plant your seeds. Growing and breeding zinnias is a hobby of mine, and sometimes when I am planting some "experimental" zinnias I will plant the seeds as close as 5 inches apart, but I do that with the expectancy of culling out and removing well over half of them at first bloom. Ideally, I like my zinnia plants to be about 18 inches apart. I space my rows 16 inches apart, with the idea that if the plants are "staggered" from one row to the next, they will be about 18 inches apart in all directions. That is a kind of "honeycomb" layout. But usually the seed packets will give you some guidance on this. And your personal preferences about a landscape. Some landscapes deliberately have a kind of wild meadowland look, with a lot of random irregularity in the plant spacing. ZM This post was edited by zenman on Sat, Mar 29, 14 at 12:57

Sue, thanks for the tip on Heritage Roses NW. I will check into that. Here is my list. I didn't include the climbers because I think I know how to place them. And this list doesn't include all the Austins I want to get and all the OGRs I want to get now that I have found this forum! LOL All of these roses are mostly from Heirloom which is local for me and RU (from Pat's suggestions). Amazing Grace Abraham Darby Ambridge Rose Bonica Bolero Brigadoon Cassie Cecile Brunner Courageous Desiree Elle Flutterbye Frederic Mistral Graham Thomas Hot Cocoa Jacqueline Du Pre Jude The Obscure Lady Mitchell Lavaglut Lavender Dream Lemon Spice Louise Clements Miss Dior Molineux Mystic Beauty Outta The Blue Pat Austin Peach Blossom Pegasus Pillow Fight Pink Knock Out Pretty Jessica QueenÂs London Child Reconciliation Roberto Capucci Sans Soucci Sharifa Asma St. Swithun Sunsprite Tamora Tess Of The DÂurbervilles Thornbury Castle Tournament Of Roses Well-Being I am putting together a list of roses I want to get for the future and will have to plan for those roses too. Wow, this is a big job! So I will have, like I said, a bunch of OGRs and some more Austins to add to my plan but I don't have that list finalized yet. I wanted to see how much space I have left before I order more. Oh, and all the roses from Heirlooms are band size. And the ones from RU are gallons. I am having a hard time making sure all these bands stay watered. I have planted some roses from Heirloom before and they did fine without potting them into gallons first before putting them in the garden. So I would like to plant these bands as soon as possible. Thanks for your help! Karen

Melissa, I, too, was motivated to plant my new hostas last year TOO close to each other, trying for that "fuller" look; needless to say, I have spent the last 2 weeks moving every single hosta farther apart. It hasn't been 6 months and they were already encroaching upon each other. I moved all the big ones as far back along the fence as possible & managed to give each one at least 1 more foot of clearance. Eventually, these must be dug up & divided, as I have managed to fill up almost every nook in my garden. I will try to post pics so that you have an idea. They say patience is a virtue; it's better to space them apart & wait the 3-5 years it takes them to reach full maturity, than to have to dig them up & move them. My two cents.

You are SO correct Linda. After writing that question last night I had my husband help me (6'5 1/2" with none bending knees :) and I sat up two tables with chairs back to back. We decided 52" in the minumin space for two chairs back to back AND people to walk past the seated people. I have had to eliminate a total row of tables but have come up with some ideas for added seating by taking our piano out of the room, turning the tables the other way and using 4 foot tables in otherwised unusable spaces. I can't seat 50 but am up to 45 people leaving very comfortable spaces for movement. You are right - we really hate to isolate people in other rooms as the rooms are very spread out and the closest room (living room) will be used after the meal for the family sharing circle and BINGO. It has carpet and brand new uphostered furniture so you hate to put tables up in there but that is what we will do if the 50 or more arrive. THANK YOU FOR YOUR RESPONSE