Kate, I lurk over here once in awhile, and happened to see your post. I do smoothies in several ways. Recently I've bought some little push-up containers for freezing and I'm making popsicles that are 'the bomb' - excuse the pun. I'll start with two recipes for popsicles that were given to me 30 years ago, and they easily converted to sugar-free, fat-free. The first is for fudgesicles. Mix a 3 oz box of instant sugar free chocolate pudding mix according to package directions, using nonfat milk. Then blend in a ?13 oz? can of nonfat evaporated milk (not the sweetened kind, just plain evap milk. If you're not watching your fat grams, regular evap milk makes a creamier fudgesicle, but these aint half bad.) Pour into molds and freeze. (If you're not on a diet, a cup or two of brewed flavored coffee and a can of that sweetened evap milk, frozen, is also yummy. But I digress......) The second is for dripless popsicles. It calls for a 3 oz box of any flavor Jell-o, mixed according to package directions. Do not chill. Instead, add a can of evap milk to make a "Dreamsicle", or 2 cups of mixed fruit, (mashed or pureed). Pour into molds and freeze. Now, for what I call a "milkshake", soften 2 tsp. of unflavored gelatin in about 1/2 cup water. Then place this in the microwave until the gelatin has melted and the mixture is kinda like eggwhite. This takes only 30 seconds or so. Into your blender, place whatever kind of fruit strikes your fancy. I like peach, banana or strawberry the best, or a mixture. Maybe about a cup. Add about half cup of water. If you want it like a smoothie you would not add dry milk, but I add 1/3 cup dry milk because I like it better that way. Start the blender, and while it is whirring, pour in the hot gelatin. Then start dropping ice into the blender until the mixture thickens and becomes smooth. Pour into a glass and eat it with a spoon. If your fruit is not sweet enough on its own, add some artificial sweetener or sugar. Smoothies can be made with all kinds of different fruits, and lot of times I just throw frozen fruit into the blender in lots of different combinations: plum and banana with some frozen apple juice concentrate. Canned pineapple and frozen strawberry with some frozen orange juice concentrate. Something tart with something sweet, you know? You can leave out the gelatin if you don't want to go to the trouble, but I like the smooth creaminess it gives to the finished product. You can make a very nice 'cheesecake' by using the gelatin, fat-free cream cheese, some dry milk powder and lemonade concentrate. Of course there's sugar in the lemonade concentrate. You can also make a 'chocolate shake' by using the gelatin mixture recipe, replacing the fruit with 1 cup water and another 1/3 cup of nonfat dry milk powder, and adding maybe a tablespoon of cocoa. I like to go to Allrecipes.com and I notice they're featuring a lot of smoothie recipes there. So if none of these appeal to you, try there. They have a search function you can use, just search on 'smoothie'. I'm not connected to them in any way, I just like the site. Oh, and BTW, lots of things can be frozen and eaten without thawing (besides cookies, but I'm digressing again...). Grapes are delicious frozen, as are blueberries, peaches and apple slices (dip the apple slices in salt water, drain and freeze, 1 tbsp to a gallon -- do the math for smaller quantities, you don't taste it and it keeps the apple from turning). Bananas can be frozen in the skin, but not for a very long tine. To eat, run water over the skin to thaw it a bit, score it down the length of the banana and pry up along one edge. It will peel right off, usually in one piece. The skin will have blackened but the banana inside is still yellow and creamy. My kids used to call frozen banana 'ice cream'. LOL You must eat it while it's frozen though because when it thaws it's not a pretty sight. Watermelon and cantaloupe make wonderful popsicles. The trick is to puree them first. Cantaloupe is wonderful blended into apricot jello for popsicles. I think they have watermelon flavor jello now but I haven't tried it. There are all kinds of possibilities for smoothies, and any smoothie can be made into a popsicle. If you're interested, I bought my popsicle push-up molds at organize.com (not affiliated with them either). They're called cool cones. I like them very much. They don't leak out the bottoms so when I freeze them I set them upright in the freezer and let the 'stems' hang down between the wires of the shelf until they're solid. I hope this helps! --Ilene

Seems to have been around long enough so that if others had found it to be a dud it would have shown up on Don Rawson's list of Difficult To Grow Hostas, and it hasn't...so, if yours is stuck in neutral I'd look at environmental factors. For instance could there be root competition? Pieter

Hmm. Average counter height is 34.5 so this may be a hard find. I did a quick google search for fridge/freezer drawers and they were all the standard size. Try a local appliance showroom, they may be able to help.

It seems to be a 6-7' tall, 4-5' wide paniculata. Nothing very unusual that I could tell but it is late and I am sleepy. Very little info on the webpage, compared to other vendors. It mentioned something about strong upright stems but I have seen better upright bloom pictures of Pinky Winky for example. No info on approximate bloom sizes; maybe PW gets around flopping by having smaller (less weight) blooms. Also, many of the blooms in the main picture appear to have a very nice two-tone color: pink in the bottom and white on top... as if the picture was taken in mid-blooming season. Makes me think of VS. There is also a picture showing the spent blooms when they all have turned dark pink-ish and a few nice close ups. No pics of the blooms when they are all white (recently opened). The main picture on the webpage shows a shrub with lots of blooms on the top, then a band of green, suggesting no blooms in the middle or flopping of blooms... Then another bunch of blooms below the green that may be flopping. Not sure about all this "very upright" claim... the picture gave me the impression that, while bloomless stems may not flop and while stems with blooms at the very top do not flop, there is still flopping... blooms slightly below the top ones seem to be "looking towards/straight at the camera".. I would like to know the dimensions (how tall, how wide) of that bush in the picture. The given dimensions on the webpage suggest a shrub that grows upright (6-7') more than it grows sideways (4-5') but, the shrub in the picture seems to be very wide and not that tall. Hmm, just had a thought... maybe there are two shrubs in there... so close though, maybe they were going for the hedge look... http://www.firsteditionsplants.com/berry-white-hydrangea I found another webpage with more info. This one compares the shrub to Vanilla Strawberry and Strawberry Sundae. I assume therefore that it was developed as a competitor to Strawberry Sundae. http://www.baileynurseries.com/first-editions-berry-white-hydrangea Also developed in Gorron, France (where VS originated from... Gorron is in the northwest corner of the country). Here is some patent info: "The present invention relates to a new and distinct cultivar of Hydrangea paniculata and will be referred to hereafter by its cultivar name, ‘RENBA’. ‘RENBA’ represents a new deciduous shrub grown for landscape use. The new Hydrangea resulted from a controlled breeding program that commenced in 1987 in Gorron, France. ‘RENBA’ was derived from crosses made in 2007 between unnamed proprietary Hydrangea paniculata plants (not patented) from the Inventor's breeding program and the seeds from the crosses where pooled therefore the exact parentage is unknown. ‘RENBA’ was selected as a single unique plant in 2009 from amongst the resulting seedlings. Asexual propagation of the new cultivar was first accomplished by softwood cuttings in 2009 by the Inventor in Gorron, France. Asexual propagation by softwood cuttings has determined that the characteristics of the new cultivar are stable and are reproduced true to type in successive generations." The following things are listed as making it unique in the patent: upright, well-branched plant habit; strong, erect branches; a long bloom period (but that would be July-Oct in Gorron's very mild summers); blooms with panicles of flowers that emerge white in color changing to pink and maturing to a deep pink to red color (not sure why this makes it unique by itself... as many paniculatas do similarly but, hmmm, maybe the shade of pink or dark pink is different/unique in Gorron's mild summers); large and full panicles.