On your own eric. You are intent on bringing garden design to a level that makes sense to you so tell me what are the parameters? What we do this time is: you make the suggestions and I come in with the banality, you be the starter and I get to be the smart arse commentator. Can you do do it? Shall we wait for you to start something of interest or should we only wait for you to grace a concern with your superior but distant knowledge? Did you ever take a chance with a post of your own?

Hi Robert. The 1 I saw could easily do that. They tied @ 5 stems to 1 side of a single walkthrough wrought iron arch & let the other 4 or so stems sprawl on the ground which were at least 7 ft long. It was the new growth from those tied stems I noticed were starting to wrap around the arch. I think the reason they say it's a nonclimber is that I don't think the new growth can hold the weight of those stems. The leaves are huge on the woody part of the vine. I wonder if it would have been pruned like it was suppose to be that it would have more than the 10 stems coming from the base & not be as woody. I really liked the way this 1 was growing & seemed pretty tame. From what I could tell amongst all the weeds, each stem didn't branch off too far & stayed about a foot wide. I can visualize using each stem like a piece of garland & weaving it in & out of perennials. I did pick up 1 of the long vines & did not appear to be clinging to all those weeds, which is another good sign of it being tame. I did not see it flowering so I can't say how much wider each stem will get. I'm curious to here someone's experience with the proper pruning.

Rosewitch, England was definitely one of my favorite places I have ever visited. My folks took me there when I was 14, and I remember bits and pieces the Crown jewels, walking amongst the Stonehenge stones (roped off now, vandalism), Stratford upon Avon. Time for me to take my own 14YO. Im trying to think how I can get over there for a whole summer, LOL. Dlynn, I could have worked so much more. I didnt really look at night time stuff and there was loads to do. Greece: cant help you, but shoot Yasou a line, she went a few years ago. LOL Annie! Teresa, well go together. I wanted to explore more cooking and food shops/stores but didnt get to. Terri, here is more a link to Pictures of England, a website pointed out to me by Denise. I started it on Bourton on the Water, where we stayed for a few days. Thanks Sharon, I was actually thinking how can I even come close to posting her quality of travel guides, I dont do the pictures she does LOL. We might have sat at the same table in the Cheshire Cheeses dining room! Sawdust still there, but we didnt make it to the cellar. I missed a lot of the British Museum. It has changed.check out the new atrium. I couldnt keep up with DH and DS16. Afternoons, when I planned museums, I crashed. Next time! Pam, lots of people did more than we did per day! Theater every night, more attractions, I cant imagine. Gina heh heh yeah I need another vacation like a hole in my head. Speaking of whichDH has another week off in August. Nooooooooo! Kathleen, DH says he took an average of 200 pictures a day. Yup. Me, I just buy the post cards or Google the images, same thing (DARFC from the photo bugs here) Cathy, thanks for giving me the War and Peace moniker heh heh. Next time I go with CF friends! LindaC, I know. Im still exhausted. Speaking of the V&A, did you know there was a Dale Chihuly chandelier in the entrance room?

I usually have one hand-piecing project going. I'm down to the final two rows of my hand-pieced GFG, so this week I cut out and started another hand-piecing project (see a block of this in my thread "Anyone know the name of this block?"). I plan to hand-piece the seams around the center red square, then machine-piece those small blocks together 4 to a block. I machine-piece all my other quilts, though. I love hand-work, but my machine gets a workout, too. I mainly hand-quilt most of my quilts, but lately, in an effort to finish up more, I am machine-quilting straight lines with my walking foot - in the ditch, or diagonal lines across blocks, and yes, I have machine-quilted and hand-quilted both on the same quilt. I do the machine-quilting first - usually it's in the middle of the quilt, and the hand-quilting is in the outer borders where I can put a nice feathery or flowery design. There are no rules!