and in my z5 MI ... spring was 4 to 6 weeks late this spring ... meaning the soil didnt heat early.. meaning germination was delayed .. etc ... first time in 35 years.. that i doubt my 4 oclocks will make it to bloom ... and i might have to rebuy seed for the first time in that period ... of course.. the very cold spring.. was followed by intermittent drought ... and we are now finishing up with blistering heat ... many of my self reseeding annuals are simply.. all screwed up ... no one in their right mind sill argue with zen about this plant ... i agree on the hours of sun .... but on the other hand.. you nearly perfectly explain their growth cycle ... in my z5 MI ... they are not much to look at... until late july/aug .... you said this: --- What I find (and this has been the case over successive years) is that these zinnias languish for so long, barely holding their own throughout May and June and even into July. And it isn't until mid to late July that I see a reversal of fortune for these zzs and they begin to flourish. --- and that is why.. i have never gone all zen on them ... lol ... just figuring.. they are a borderline cold z5 plant... in my garden.. anyway ... [see what i did there.. lol] ken

IMHO, this type of planting that the OP shows in the original post, is somewhat of a reversal to mass landscaping that was done about 40-50 years ago by builders in the "newly developed suburbs" Hubby and I bought a home 28 years ago, in a well developed, but small development whose homes where already about 25-30 years old. Houses where built in the old fashioned design of remove just enough trees to build the house and leave plenty of land for each home. Houses have 1 acre of land, lots of trees around it, most with quite large land frontage etc. It's when the landscapers came in that the disasters where created and it was with every home in the development. Nothing was appropriately planted, tress where shrubs should be and trees that would grow to be huge disasters in their planted locations where placed all over the place and at the foundation of houses. When we bought our home, my hubby thought I was crazy. the house was wonderful, the land was more than an acre to have. Beautiful frontage, very long and large driveway that holds more than 8 cars, and surrounded by beautiful woods and an already chain link fenced in back yard for the 2 year old to play in and added to all that, it was a dead end road and we where the next to last house on the street. It was the landscaping that was the total disaster. I kept telling hubby, don't worry about that part. It will take several years to repair the disaster, but I could do it, I grew up on a summer flower farm. It's been a daunting task over the past 38 years but this is what was and has been done. The front of the house was covered with arbovite trees, all leaning on the front of both sides of the front stairs. One side completely covered the picture window so that no light could come in. 4 weeks after moving in, we cut the trees down to the ground. In the fall we dug out all the crappy soil, filled with fresh loam, peat, etc. In the spring I got to work on that first bed. Luckily the 2 blue hydrangeas from the market where hardy to this area and they have come back every year, huge and more beautiful every year. Added to the planting with my potted herb garden and the old plastic birdbath that won't hold water but works beautifully as a container planter. and of course other containers end up arriving there every year Opposite the picture window, smack in the middle of the front yard, 2 beautiful Colorado Blue Spruce where planted. They looked beautiful and where as healthy as could be. On the other hand, I knew what the future held for them and it wasn't something I wanted in the front yard, especailly when they where already approaching 7 feet tall. So at Christmas time, we cut those down and gave them as gifts to 2 very close friends for Xmas trees. The following spring, this bed was dug out, leaving the very low remains of the spruce stumps on either end of the bed It gets filled with lots of annuals and has perennials in it as well. lupine under the hanging poles on either side dianthus firewitch on either side of the birdbath in the center under the arbor The trench with bark mulch that you can see in the pics of the flower bed in the center of the front yard, had a 3-4 foot hedge in it. No idea why, but that was all cut down to the ground and I fill the area with pots of plants. To the left of the center bed, way in the front on the left side, you can barely see what was left of a rhodie. It was 8 feet tall when we moved in. I had hubby cut it way down to about 2 feet. You should have seen his face as he kept saying he was killing it. Of course we all know better than that, rhodies do quite well with even severe cutting. Finally, last year I had my fill of it being in the way. It was cut to the ground and I'm keeping it from growing back. The opposite side of the front stairs at the foundation had the same arbovite trees growing that where huge as well. We cut those down the first few weeks that we lived here, but I never got to do anything with a bed there. Oh, the small stump is all that remains of another rhodie that was planted there. 10 feet tall when we moved in. Cut down to 2 feet and kept there till this new garden bed was dug. The kids took it down to the ground because it would block the view of the new bed. I had no complaints as the beat me to the punch in cutting it down to the ground. I guess, what I'm showing and trying to say is what is shown in the OP first pic is, what I would call, a reversal of fortune. I return to some really dumb and stupid design plantings that existed 30 years ago. No thought in what is being planted, no idea of size that trees and shrubs will grow and the bark mulch mounded is the perfect ingredient to kill what they planted. Fran Almost 8 years ago, when my mother passed away, my daughters friends came in and dug the bed for me, filled it with fresh loam and garden soil and covered it with bark mulch, while we where at my mother's funeral. They knew I would be digging out my mother's perennials from her apartment garden and they created a perfect location to put them in. All I had to do was go get them and bring them home, dig the holes and put them in. I've kept it as her memorial garden and everything that grows in it where either her perennials, annuals from seeds of hers that she had and plants that she wanted to get and still hadn't gotten. That fenced in back yard, the one with the chain link fence, no longer has young children in it. Both have long grown up, 25 and 30. So it is used to hold all my wintersown containers through the winter and until they are planted. The fence itself gets filled with at least 50 different kinds of morning glory plants.

This was in the business section of our newspaper today. Pitfalls of PayPal can touch off a reversal of fortune for eBay sellers James Derk-Scripps Howard News Service I have been using PayPal, the online payment system, for more than seven years. In the industry you hear all kinds of horror stories about every Web site, but my personal experience with PayPal has been rather calm. Though I am not a terribly active eBay seller, I do use PayPal to sell signed copies of my new book, so I am using the Web site quite a bit to accept payments and print mailing labels. Recently I did sell a Playstation game console that developed some issues; maily I place it on eBay "as is" for someone to use for parts or to repair. Someone with zero feedback on eBay bought it and promptly paid with PayPal. I gave him good feedback on eBay and shipped the device. I forgot about it for a few weeks until I sold a book and had to go into PayPal's site to print the mailing label. I noted on my list of transactions that my account had been debited and the Playstation buyer now had a "reversal" near his name. Turns out he had received my console and reversed the charge, something I didn't even know was possible. So he had the money and the console and positive feedback on eBay. A pretty good scam, I thought. This will be easy to reverse. So I called PayPal. Representatives told me the issue was my fault because I didn't respond to three e-mails they sent me. I check my inbox and didn't find any e-mails. PayPal then told me to appeal. "I am sure they will rule in your favor," the clerk told me. I appealed and 24 hours later received a form letter stating that the issue was my fault and I was out of both the money and the equipment. This dance of annoyance went on for days and could fill a couple of columns, but I want to share with you what I have ultimately learned. First of all, e-mails from PayPal are among the most "phished" in the world, meaning many "fake" ones come to your mailbox hoping you will log in to fake PayPal sites and give away your info. Windows Mail, the new mail program in Windows Vista, does a great job in filtering out what it thinks are "phishing" e-mailsllltrouble is it also filtered out these real e-mails from PayPal. So I never got mine, as I get hundreds of spam mails a day to that folder. Michael Oldenburg, a PayPal spokesman, told me that the vast majority of users on the site are happy with how PayPal works and many of those are focused on fraud prevention. When disputes are filed, he said, "they are usually worked out amicably during that process." My recommendations are simple: keep very little money in your PayPal account. If your account is hacked or a transaction is reversed, there won't be much money in there. Also keep checking your PayPal account and don't rely on e-mails to notify you of anything. It is up to you if you want to avoid the platform altogether (if you read the complaint site PayPal Sucks you'll never wan to use it again) but it has become ubiquitous on eBay (PayPal is owned by eBay). Just be careful out there.

Thanks for all of the opinions. Nice to see that you are still checking up on me, Les. :) We miss you around here and I hope your job is going well. Well, it's against my decorating DNA to have a large black mirror over a black chest, so the server is the only option. If everything isn't all mixed up, I'm never comfortable in a room. Must be the result of a disfunctional childhood, lol. The server actually has two larger rectangular pieces of black and grey granite inset on the top of it. So, there is a bit of black to play off of. The lousy pic was beacause I snapped it for a post where someone was asking about 3.25" hardwood flooring. Jamies, I had the same reaction to the mirror as you did and just love things that are a *nod to* rather than a perfect replica. The dull finish next to the wood and granite is another plus regarding my affinity for mixing textures (thanks, Dilly). Funky, I expect you to have picked out a DR table by the time I have finally finished my room. :)