I'm glad someone brought up the paver planters again. I don't know where it went either. I read the paver post last night and am wondering if I can do something similar to make square raised beds on one of our downtown flower beds that has terrible terrible soil. We (the garden club) agreed to do a bed honoring the anniversary of a local group and that would be the best place. They would like it loosely based on their anniversary logo so that means square. I'm thinking 2 feet on each side and six inches high, four of them. If I can't find 2 foot long pieces, I'm imagining I could add a reinforcement to the sides where the seam is, maybe even mosaic it! I would have to make them in place, but maybe my dh and my mosaic buddy would help me. I am talking May here, next thing I'm doing today is shoveling snow. But the group wants to know where the garden will be by next week, so I have to think it through now. Kathy

plumberry, I think you're correct in thinking that the fridge would be even more crowded than the oven in that doorway. Fridge doors are open many more times a day than oven doors. I like rhome's suggestion of placing the ovens between the pantry cabs. However, if you like them where you've placed them but are concerned about their doorway placement, then you could modify buehl's earlier suggestion of moving the doorway to give them a larger buffer. Give up 8" of the peninsula - 4' will accommodate 2 stools, 8" doesn't gain you another spot at the counter - and add that to the wall next to the ovens. The oven doors will still open into that entry but not by as much. But I have to ask, is the peninsula seating in the dining room absolutely necessary? If it's just a "well, every kitchen must have counter seating" thinking, then perhaps you should rethink this. If you lose the peninsula, you can shift the DR opening as much as needed to give your ovens the buffer you desire, even by as much as buehl suggested earlier in her drawing.

Yep, but not strictly true regarding flowering stalks and plants in spikes or racemes...as anyone who has (tediously) deadheaded campanulas flower by flower can attest (obviously been there). I dunno, don't wish to be disrespectful to committed deadheaders but I found that this single issue gave me more anxiety and grief than all other gardening worries put together (including thorny pruning problems). The sheer frantic horror to keep the sweet peas going just another few days...or cornflowers - I actually stopped growing many of these easy annuals because of the DHing nightmare. The first plants to feel the neglectful regime of being left alone were roses...of which I grow A LOT (although most are species, once bloomers). And to my astonishment, it made not a single jot of difference - the hybrid musks and climbers rebloomed whether deadheaded or not...and at that point, I really started to slack off on the perennials...unless I could simply wave a hedge-trimmer on them (as with penstemons). I could have enjoyed it more if it was only a gentle snipping as with the dahlias but it just got all-consuming until it was either me or them. One nightmare year, I had swathes of cosmos, geum, malope, cornflowers, nasturtium, calendula and tagetes - thousands of flowers...along with it being a sweet pea year - I was almost insane by late August. It even overtook the hanging basket fiasco (when I had 13 of them). I do successional sowing and early yanking now.

I got it whatsayyou!! Getting ready to email you. Lukki, I only ever use Firefox, I haven't changed anything. It's not that big of a deal, because I don't message often, but right now I can't message at all. I can receive and I'm going to try replying to one, but there's not an option for me to send a message. I'm pretty sure it's a HOUZZ problem, but who knows?!