I grew Sweetness when it was a J&P test rose a couple of years ago. At first I was very impressed with it's vigorous growth, but then it bloomed and I fell out of love very quickly. Almost as fast as the blooms blew!! My Sweetness blooms only lasted a maximum of six days and then were shot. The color was nice and the fragrance was okay, but not as nice as other lavenders. Then, the most frustrating thing was it's lack of rebloom. The first flush produced about 8 good flowers and the entire rest of the year I only got about 5 more flowers. Ditto the second year as well. Good first Spring flush and then almost nothing the rest of the year. And, the blooms still didn't last more than six days or so. When I cut them for vases in the house they didn't fare any better either. Then, it's third year I transplanted it from it's container to a spot in the garden and the darned thing just up and dried up and died on me. So, no more Sweetness and no great loss as far as I am concerned. As for Neptune, I have tried growing two of them and both were duds. They had no growth vigor, bloomed rarely, and the blooms were not very pretty to look at. I gave each bush three years to improve and they didn't so they both got the shovel. I think that Fragrant Plum, Melody Parfumee, Lagerfeld, and Royal Amethyst are much better lavenders than either Sweetness or Neptune. Another lavender to watch for is the J&P lavender test rose in this years J&P Test Panel roses. This one is a darker lavender, has very thick petal substance so the flowers last a good long time, and they are wonderfully fragrant. The bush has lots of blooms and looks like it is going to be quick to repeat bloom. It is a grandiflora rather than a hybrid tea, but the blooms are still nice and large compared to most grandiflora's that I have grown. Of course J&P hasn't named it or even decided for sure to market it commercially yet, but I am very confident that they will as it looks to be a very high quality rose so far. It was very quick to break dormancy after I planted the bareroot plant. And, it has grown and bloomed very vigorously and so far has not shown any sign of disease at all and it hasn't been sprayed at all. I don't spray the test roses so that I can really assess their disease resistance. Anyway, watch for this one if/when J&P decides to name it and start selling it commercially on their website. I would really recommend it highly. John

RITA: That pretty yellow one(1st one ) is HYPERION. I put a name on every one of them, but I see this one has no name on it now/.Huu, wonder what happened to it.Hope I spelled it right just now.I see I even ended up with 2 pictures of SUSAN WEBER here, too.I love SUSAN WEBER, too and hope it multiplys a lot and make me a huge clump. NANCY; Thank you, I hope my Victorian Lace does real well for me, too.It was given to me early last spring,and where I planted it at,it didn't do well,and I just had 1 fan,and was so afraid it was going to die,I dug it back up and potted it, till spring this year, then planted it.Its grown into 2 fans now. MICHELLE:Thank you for your nice comment. VAL: Thank you. ELLIE; Thanks, you mean SUSAN WEBER has a lot of pink on it? and I LOVE it just like it is. Thank you all for the nice comments and for looking at my photos. They HAVE improved over last year, haven't they, well,I t hink they have.:-)) Jean

My old kitchen definitely didn't look bad. The only thing about the old cabs that wasn't bad was the doors. The boxes were total garbage, otherwise I would have done a reface on some of them. CEFreeman - You're right! I hated that weird cabinet! lol It stuck out into the room and created a weird traffic pattern. Good riddance! shappy - I can't imagine anyone liking that sink! The biggest problem with the darn thing is that the middle bowl isn't recessed into the sink. Being an over mount, that middle bowl is the same height as the outer rim. Wash anything and you have to rest it on the edge of that inner bowl and water runs out the front and back of the sink. Took a bath every time I used it. If they had just recessed that middle bowl . . . . . . In hindsight, I should have taken a sledgehammer to that darn sink and bought a new one for the people who took the kitchen. Would have been good therapy. lol Meanwhile I am LOVING using the single bowl utility sink in the laundry room. After trying to decide between single vs. double bowl, I know I made the right choice to go with a single. Can't wait to use my new one. This is my temp kitchen/laundry room.

Interesting question. On years 1-2 or 1-3, I would have expected them to not have roots that comingle (mix) yet. So they both should have had the same chance to bloom normally back then. I wonder if the cascading, hardly-flowering Limelight had a root system that was root bound and that continues to circle around what used to be the nursery's plant pot size's dimensions. If so, eventually it will exhaust the available soil minerals unless you correct the problem first by cutting the roots so they stop circling. Do you recall unearthing any construction debris when originally digging the planting holes? I assume you have not encountered soil mineral, pests, water or light issues before in the cascading Limelight's area and that water does not pool in there? (just looking for explanations)....