I agree with Mrs G! Three weeks ago the Caroline were blooming and I pruned 6" off the tops to force laterals which are now full of blooms. Caroline replaced Heritage for me years ago for flavor as well as vigor and productivity. Carolines are now over five feet tall. All my primocane raspberries (another favorite is Dinkum),are cut down each winter to have only the 'fall' crop. I thin them in the spring to have only 4 plants per square foot with rows being 2 feet wide. I also thin every few weeks to maximize air circulation and production. My goal is to begin red rasp picking in late July as my 40 blueberries take all the picking time until then. Currently, I use certified org horse manure compost, Ca-25, Sea-90, homemade EM and kelp meal to enhance the berries and clay soil. All my berries are maintained organically in full sun. The best tasting and juiciest Heritage I ever ate were raised at the base of a huge black walnut tree in central IL. It is interesting how sister plants can taste different on various soils and or mulches. If you have a close by walnut tree, experiment with a few of your Heritage. IMO, even a 'dryish' red rasp is better than many other treats.

FYI - here is what I had found on the internet when I first planted it and wanted to know how to prune it: "the upright oval, strongly ascending, and sparsely-branced growth habit at youth gives way to a spreading growth habit with arching, heavy, densly twiggy branches at maturity, that creates an open center unless pruning and shearing have already occurred" So, I do top mine off in early spring and it recovers by summer as you can see by the picture. The island was planted in 2000 - so mine is 6 years old. I did notice a couple of suckers from mine this year for the first time. I don't know what it is about my island planting, though - everything wants to take over so I usually have to pull out some coreopsis, artemisia and this year the anemone is really aggressive. Yet I can't grow a daylily there. Very odd. I think your landscaping is very pretty. I think as they mature they will be nice.

Wow. You've taken on a lot by doing things from the ground up. If it helps, I envy that - we did a smaller job, by gutting/rewiring etc the main floor and are just now getting around to finishing it by finally stripping and installing mouldings, replacing windows, etc. We have lived without most mouldings and baseboards for nearly 20 years!!! Now that we are finishing things, I find myself wishing that we had started by raising the house and putting in a higher, better foundation with new perimeter drainage. So where you don't have drywall, I don't have the new foundation... and you've got the harder work behind and the easier work ahead. One thing I wish I had done is just accepted that it wasn't all going to get done right away and taken the pressure off myself to get it done. My irritation about it created some stress that we could have done without through the years we were raising our kids (youngest now 16). Instead I cursed every day for the fact that they had to grow up in a house without door casings. I also kept waiting to really figure out window coverings and such "till the casings are up" and allowed it to keep me from making other decisions as well. I feel like I didn't really "move in," mentally at least, all those years. Plus, my husband and I had different levels of interest in finishing the house, and that caused a lot of strife. All the above may be a way of saying, don't let what you don't have done yet spoil every day for you. Don't hold off life until it's all done, because life is what's happening to you now! Or, put another way, forgive yourself for what you're not getting done and DO go the beach sometimes! The other thought that finally dawned on me just in the last couple of years was to see us as just one "shift" of homeowners who will be stewarding the house over the course of its life, and to realize that we can only deal with the challenges that arise during our tenure, just as previous owners addressed what came up during theirs, as best they could. We will have to leave some things to future owners, including some of the things we didn't get perfect first try. I think I was able to begin thinking this way because I previously hadn't really thought of us ever moving. But I'm beginning to feel that we will. Finally, our new motto is that 95% is good enough! We are both perfectionists, it's one reason we don't do things until we have the resources/time/interest to do the research and analysis and shopping and get them just right. Now, we'll do a 95% job and say, it's better than when the job wasn't done at all, which was Zero. Part of what's allowed us to go here is again the idea that we might move, and so we do things that we feel will be appealing to other people, rather than doing them in ways that perfectly match our personal tastes. A little detachment does wonders! So even if we don't ever move, we'll be way ahead with everything done to 95%. In a nutshell, do the best you can with what you have, enjoy the journey, and give yourself and each other a break when you need one, however long it has to be. KarinL

Big box and discount stores often have a different number. Sometimes there are slight differences in the model, others it's just an identifier that you got it at Costco. Maybe do a shout out to Trevor or Jakvis who might know how to unpack the model numbers? From looking at the listings I've been able to figure out that the "30" is for a nominally thirty inch wide range. The 4B seems to be for four burner. (The 36" one is 6B.) I think the V2 is for the height of the back--vertical level two. (edit: Correction from John_Williams50--V2 is for Version 2) "SS" on other appliances is often "stainless steel", but I don't know if that's so for BS. If so, "C" near the end would be for "color".