Have so enjoyed this thread; brings back a lot of nice memories from when I first discovered this forum and started lurking back around '96 or '97. Previous to that I had lurked on rec.garden.roses and enjoyed that but this format was so much better and still remains the best IMHO. I did my first post in 2002 I believe after Pat Henry of RU kindly wrote out for me Kathy Zuzek's list of recommended Buck roses. I asked her if I could post it on GW and she was pleased and said please do. So, after stewing about 2 weeks, I took the plunge and posted the list. I still mostly just lurk. Have missed many of the early posters; felt like family. Many changes occurred about a year or so ago on this site causing many to leave and losts of "shouting" back and forth among members. This was my place where I came to relax and as tensions mounted, I found it stressful and left. Glad to see we are back to former times, and calmness and civility are again the rule. The Frenchmand or Belgian whom I have seen referred to in above posts was Christian (sp?). He worked as an air controller. He use to post beautiful pictures in the early days when few were posting pics. I still remember a pic of the control tower where he worked. His picture of Veilchenblau was spectacular and I had to have it after seeing what kind of a show that old rambler could do. He also kindly provided a link where he had recorded all the names of the French named roses, carefully and slowly pronouncing them so we could pronounce them correctly (I still butcher them). Remember Paul on the Lake who taught us all to fall in love with the Tyrosaurus Rex rose commonly called William Baffin, and his annual tales of pruning the monster to keep it from devouring his house. Paul's artistic temperament and training showed in the pictures of his beautifully designed perennial beds. And that lawn! It looked as if every blade of grass was cut by hand and weeds, what weeds! Remember the adventures of our friends Bill and Jack in their California swimming pool and their Mommy who grew beautiful roses. It wasn't a holiday without the adventures of Bill and Jack all suitably "dressed up" for the occasion. I still remember Jean's dear Floyd with his little blue metallic New Year's hat on his head. No one deserved to die his death in this day and age. Cindi and her black swans. Remember the pics of when her kitchen flooded and the swans peeked in and thought they had discovered a new swimming pool. Her circular bed of Knockout backed by tall evergreen trees and surrounded by lawn was one of the most beautiful pictures I had seen and kept it on my desk top. Unfortunately my computer recently crashed and I lost all my pics. Am trying to downsize as I get older and my energy levels decrease. Bax Boyd who use to be very active on the Propagation Forum lives near me and had given a talk on how to propagate roses for our local rose society in 2001. He taught me too well and I have many roses rooted from his large collection as well as those I bought. Nice to hear from so many members again. Wishing you all the best with your "rosing." Jim

sinfonian: how much land do you have? 5 acres.. Is that valley yours, yes....The top of the hill in the picture is about 1/2 way on the lot.. This is a Google Sketch-up that I did of the property using the survey as the base.. or is that what is going to be developed? - Click on picture and I have marked what he wants to develop. The lots would have a nice ocean view but you can see the buildings on the lot that would make putting in a road difficult. Is your garden close to your house? No.. I have 3 ways to go from home in Paradise to the garden... 1)4 lane divided highway it is 40 km (25 mins). 2)By pass Highway and Local = 36 km (30 mins) 3)The very scenic and slow local road = 32 km (35 mins) And a picture of some Swiss Chard in the garden yesterday! I went out to the local organic farm today and was able to buy some Latah Tomato seeds. These are being very grown successfully here with our short season. So maybe next year I will actually be able to grow red tomatoes.. We have just had 2 beautiful days of weather after the hail last week! Here is a link that might be useful: Article on the Latah Tomatoes

It *was* a great swap. :-) I had many plants to put in the ground on Sunday! And those lovely ginger lilies -- oh my gosh, what great plants! I have one blooming in the house right now. I plan to give one of them to my mom-in-law -- she will love it in her new solarium. Thanks so much to Renee and Jan for their hard work. I thought the program was excellent and showed a lot of hard work had gone into it. Really great. And to all my Garden web buddies who made it -- thank you for the plants, the great food, and most of all, the fellowship. :-) I'll be back next spring, no doubt trying to unload all the plants I neglected to dig up before the Fall swap. With that, I would just like to close with a few things: Pat -- The Chaste tree is Vitex Agnus Castus. :-) Lessons Learned: * Not bringing the hubby's new truck == VERY good thing. As it was I looked like a florist driving back to Madison in my poor little Honda :-) * You can NOT trust Brug fanatics alone with your bundles. When I got home, every bag I unloaded had little sticks tucked in them by the Brug fairy! LOL * The best part of the swap is the amazing, friendly people (but this wasn't something new I learned -- I already knew that. ) Bless you all! Photos from the UK trip will be coming soon, I promise.

O.K. Ed, nobody said electric actuators of the size and strength used on lawn and garden equipment would compete with full blown hydraulics (and excluding those used in aircraft and space technology), nor do they fall into the same category as far as installation with all them pulleys, pumps, control valves, plumbing or expense, so we are just talking about something adequate for the light applications, inexpensive and easy to install. No, the speed is not comparable to hydraulics, nor the strength. I would probably not need the plow in fully raised position unless it was in transport position rather than plowing, where it might be raised half way up to turn around. From fully raised to fully down I would guess 3 or perhaps 4 seconds, not too much time for a retired man, but more than adequate for my needs. I have had, and could have bigger equipment with the bells and whistles, but have no real need that would justify them now. This is just something to play with kinda like a hobby since I am retired and not needing to make a living with any equipment. Joe, that flat stock across the front is 3 1/2 X 5/8ths" and most likely will withstand any stress that I put on it. If not, it would not be the first time that I went back to the drawing board. It would be relatively easy to add a couple of braces from the 2 X 5/8ths" bar that runs from the slot hitch to that plate. I will post some pics below of where I started from and the end result. When I bought this wheelhorse tractor, all that came with it was a mower deck and a little trailer. I had never seen the hitches or attachments for them and had no idea what they looked like or how they worked, but left to my own method of figuring it out and apply my ration of logic to it, I have managed to fabricate some things that work well and have enjoyed doing it. I grew up on a farm, learned fairly early on to adjust plows, cultivators to leave dirt lapped up around the plants with hardly a blade of grass visable anywhere. I have spent some time with moldboard, or mouldboard plows, sometimes called "listers". They are kinda unique, need a little flexiability to do their "thing" and one of the main adjustments is that top adjustable link that relates to the plane of how the plow runs, preferably on plane atthe right depth. Nose down, it will try to dig too deep, nose up, it won't stay in the ground right. I have a link to that page about adjusting plows, but not much new there to me. I looked for a brinley plow, watched some on ebay go for $275.00 etc. and thought "why not make something so that I could use the old Craftsman 3 point stuff that I have laying around ?" That black bar in the center is an old tie rod off a truck or something which will swivel just about any direction, while maintaining a firm hold on the plate in relation to the distance between the plow and the plate. A little bit of flexiability is necessary for the plow to "list" a little (thus the term lister used by some) to do it's job correctly, assuming the plane is adjusted correctly. Thanks, I ask for it, and do appreciate the thoughts, critique and suggestions. See pics below. Bill P. This is the wheelhorse slot hitch my starting point: Progressing to this: And this: Other attachments at work: But first, I did some things with the hitch on the front to be able to use an angleing blade and dumping bucket similar to a front end loader and a few other things. Pulling up fence posts: