Windowsonwashington, thank you. Are you a dealer, distributor, or installer? I'm hoping that my order has now been corrected. When a person from Inside Sales at Lowe's called me to confirm the order, I told her I was waiting for the contractor to remeasure. She didn't know we had asked our salesperson to put the order on hold. The contractor thanked me profusely when he did return to remeasure because Lowe's did have the wrong window size on the order. He said mistakes like that are at the contractor's expense! I'm still trying to get an answer on why Lowe's order shows the Montecito series when I'm specifiying Tuscany windows. I looked at Migard's website for a clarification. You are right! They have different profiles, especially around the frames. One of the reasons I chose the Tuscany series is because of the beveled frame that resembles wood. I guess I won't know for sure until the windows are delivered . . . Goldie

barbara_ag, Our Walmarts had several Fire Opals on clearance last fall. I snatched up 3 for about 3.00 each. Check your walmarts. They remind me of the Austin Belle Story. They are really pretty. I definitely think Lowes and H. Depo should sell David Austin Roses here in NE Florida. They would sell like hotcakes here, especially if the were blooming and the employees were actually watering them. I think a major turn off for customers is seeing all these roses that are half dead/dried out and no one is dead heading them so there's dead flowers everywhere. I see dirt out of pots, roots sticking out every which way. Lots of crispy critters. Now who wants to buy that? OK, maybe just us plant/rose psychos that actually feel sorry for the roses but most customers do not! Is Lowes even listening to all this..probably not soooo.... ~Sjn

EXACTLY! After throwing a fit, I finally got my appliances ordered last May on October 18. They substituted a SHarpe microwave because the LG is now on back order at Lowes! (the microwave IS available thru LG website however) And they substituted another model for my LG Range. It was a slightly more expensive model, so we didn't gripe, but it came with no racks, no installation package, no warranty info, no user manual, no air fry tray, no built in thermomter. I spent hours talking to LG AND to Lowes. Finally had to order the installation package myself at $71 and Lowe's is supposed to give me a gift card for that amount. Lowe's optional solution was to order a completely new range (which is out of stock now and not expected til after the new year). They OBVIOUSLY robbed Peter to pay Paul. During this whole process, I have spent 2 hours with my Lowe's designer selecting appliances that were "in stock" and endless hours on the phone reporting delivery damages, missing appliances, and trying to rectify errors.

I have good experiences with USPS . Last summer I ordered from Digging Dog Nursery, and it took some persuading on my part for them to agree to ship USPS due to their experience with slowness of USPS. Thankfully, my order arrived in well under a week (CA to AK). When my bluestone order came in 2 summers ago I had the best chat with our mail carrier ever. I'm saddened to hear about USPS not being reliable for some of you and I hope that changes - I think there's a bill introduced in congress help the USPS, fingers crossed. I recently received seeds from Bakers, rareseeds.com - free shipping using USPS and it arrived within the week (beans, peas, and interesting-colored nasturtiums). I have used ebay and have had good luck there. I currently have seeds for Rhododendron lappoinicum that were shipped from Russia using ebay. This is also called lapland rosebay which is native to Alaska but I haven't been able to source it here, and I hope I can get them to germinate. (I've germinated rhododendrons before from master gardener sale after their China trip, although they didn't make it in the end.) It's always a treat to shop locally and find interesting perennials, but if you have your heart set on a particular one that's not common locally (thanks Perennials forum! ) then mail order is the way to go. High shipping cost is a drag but for me it's sometimes the case that they won't ship to Alaska at all! - that's 'a gut-punch ouch' at checkout, lol ). So maybe I don't mind paying higher shipping, depending on how badly I want the plants. The catalyst for my Digging Dog order was that they had the thalictrum flavum spp. glaucum that I just had to have and by including enough other plants the shipping was reduced to about $30 via USPS (maybe half what UPS would have been). So, I got to have a fun time shopping, reduced shipping but more plants than I was really looking for. This has gotten me thinking about native plants more, they're hard to come by commercially up here (other than lovely but more common ones - lupines, geraniums, monkshood, columbine etc), and many are tricky to start from seed. A whole different topic, though.