We don't have gutters on our house either and one thing I can say, unless your yard slopes quite steeply away from the house you will get a snow mountain under the eaves in the winter. This may not be the same problem for you depending on what your house is made of (we have wood siding that the snow starts to slump and freeze against if we do not shovel - we have had to replace the whole back side of our house this past year as the wood was rotted through in places almost to the interior walls from 30 years of this kind of thing) but I would highly recommend some sort of material that you can shovel rather than small rocks. We've put a bluestone patio on one side of our house, in part to make snow removal easier and will be putting down a bluestone walkway with drainage underneath on the other for this purpose. On the upside, we've never had our roof damaged from ice dams backing up from the gutters!

Welcome to Gardenweb. "I would really like to go with the same company for the cook top and double oven combination" Your first step should be to drop this way of thinking. There is no reason to do this unless you are getting rebates or want the "matchy matchy" look. Either way you will be compromising on functionality. No one company makes the best cooktops AND the best wall ovens. "I am considering getting a Capital cook top" Capital COOKTOP or Capital RANGETOP? They are different. if you go Capital I would recommend the Culinarian RANGEtop so you get high BTU open burners. If you prefer the look of a drop in cooktop versus a slide in range top, I would instead recommend a Bluestar so you can get similar high BTU open burners. Sadly Capital only offers those in ranges and range tops, not cooktops. "And finally, how is Miele?" Miele has excellent wall ovens. They had some issues a few years back with temperature regulation, but those are fixed. Some other excellent, bang-for-the-buck ovens are Bosch and Electrolux. There are plenty of other nice ovens on the market but I call out those three brands because they consistently get the best reviews here on this forum. And yes as you pointed out Gaggenau has a lot of "bang" if you leave out the "for the buck" part :) "I want something on the higher end of the spectrum" "I just want something that is good quality, reliable, and will help me produce some decent food."" Those two statements conflict. If the latter was all you wanted you would buy a Frigidaire package and be done with it. Clearly you want more than that and you're in the right place for advice. But to get something better than just "adequate" you will need to buy the best in your price range for each appliance, and as I said before those appliances will most likely not come from the same manufacturer. "I really want to get an integrated fridge, but I want to keep the costs down" I'm sorry to say that is kind of an oxymoron. I believe your only options for truly integrated refrigerators are Sub Zero, Thermador/Miele, and Liebherr, none of which are "cheap" brands though certainly some are cheaper than others. You may be able to get a semi integrated look from a different manufacturer though. Do not take my word as final on this - I know next to nothing about integrated refrigerators. Hopefully someone who is knowledgeable will correct me and/or add on. What I will say though is that if you find yourself unable to squeeze everything into your budget, be sure to prioritize the cooking above all else! When you step up to higher end dishwashers and refrigerators, build quality and looks increase greatly but performance only increases marginally if at all. Cooking is where spending more will get you MUCH better functionality. Good luck with your remodel!

I am Irnes and I am new here i started a site called http://www.plan-a-diet.com and I need some people to post up some good recepies. Thanx any help is greatly appreciated. Irnes

Hi audreyandmerle, Welcome to Garden Web. I'm pretty sure suckers off of a female would end up being female bushes. Could you possibly bend a stem down to the ground and pin it to get it started to root before cutting it away from the mother plant? You might try asking also at the link below.The Shrub Forum. Also, here is a list of all of the Gardening Forums, for future reference. All Garden Forums Sue