Ummm, I have no idea where to begin everyone ! Breathe taking to say the least! Josh, first off, I hope you are feeling much better my good friend! Please stop by again when you are up to it. I would love to see your beautiful Orchid here in your premium mix. It's so lovely Josh! Laura! Amazing and at this time of the year! Color is just what the Doctor oredered for Mom and for me! Thanks so much for sharing your wonderful plants. You know, have you noticed that Plumeria do FANTASTIC in the grittty mix?! Your colors and vigor attest to that. Mine did fantastic for the first time too but then the mice came by and killed them:-( Laura, do I LOVE the yellow ones. They look like they are very fragrant. Look at the size of your Brugs! I tell you, the sun in your area must be so much more enjoyed by your plants than mine. I could only wish the sun was as strong as yours in summer to force lots of blooms on my DR's.. Guess what? I think I am going to get some flowers on my Cactus Orchid very soon for the first time!!! I will post if so. They are growing in a version of the 5.1.1 mix, I think Josh's version which I love too! I miss the summer and those pool days. They will be here before we know it! Thanks again so much for sharing:-) Jodi!!!! Hello again! I REALYY appreciate all your support and very kind words. You have been such an inspiration to me in all you say and do. Your ability to grow nice plants has encouarged me in many ways. Your words of common sense and explanations means so much. Thanks again OUR dear friend! Now as for holding cameras, that is another issue.lol I can't wait to see some of your plants too:-) I hear you about an odd winter. It was 55 today here and teh mosquitos were out near my pond! I wonder if the frogs will be out early? I need to uncover my pond soon. As long as the ground does not warm beyond the 40's, everything should stay in rest stage! My main concern would be watering my plants so they don't dehydrate. The shallowed bushes I have need to be watered since I have no snow cover. You should see how FAST the ground dries out. I am concerned about dried out plants. So, I pass the hose to all my plants and do they drink:-) Linda! Wowowowoa. I never saw such interesting pots before. I love them and as Josh said, that clown is quite scary.lol That verticlaly challanged is awesome!! Where do I get one of those? I can imagine all my succulents in that thing taking up no room at all. I love your set-up and everything about it. Nice plants growing in the gritty mix I must say! Thank you so much.:-) Al, Mom would like to visit sometime for a free tour, and so would I! Mike:-)

As an insider that used to work seasonally for Jung Seed/Edmunds Roses/Totally Tomatoes/Vermont Bean/McClure and Zimmerman/Roots and Rhizomes/HPS before retirement: "auctioneersbd" is the username of Cale Zondag, the son of Bob Zondag, VP of the company and the "Bob" that is mentioned frequently in the previous posts. "Gentz13" is Cale's roommate and friend, Ben Gentz. Both sell the same exact products as Jung's, Edmund's, etc. After they get orders online, they come right into the warehouse at Randolph and take what they need. Their shipping is free because it is calculated into the shipping fees for customers of the Jung and subsidiary catalogs. This causes HUGE problems with the company because the inventory is never recorded as used. A little ways down the road, you get Jung, Edmund's, etc. customers that were told that they were getting a particular rose when they ordered (because there were enough ordered or in inventory at the time), only to find out later on that there is no product to send them. Check out the ratings on Dave's Garden and you will see there are a lot of people that pay for items that they are later refunded or credited for. Also, per the word around the place, the products that they sell are also not recorded as used inventory because the company can then count it as loss at the end of the year and probably cook the books for their taxes. As for the quality of the products, it is no different that what Jung's and the like send. The Zondag method of quality is to send it if it is bagged or tagged and don't waste time wiping off that mold. It is very telling... Also, those two don't have whatever legal stuff you need to have to sell plants in WI so you have to lie to the government inspectors when they come in and pretend you don't know what they are. Before you think that everyone at Jung's is on board with htis, let me tell you that it is not the case. The Zondags own the company and call all the shots, but it drives the employees nuts because they often get blamed for missing products and inaccurate inventory. They even fired a long time order fulfillment manager and mailroom supervisor because of the inaccuracies in inventory and the additional packages that were shipped to non company customers -- made by Cale and Ben and said it was because the manager and supervisor didn't get along and it was a 'restructuring' matter. Whatever!

I have been missing our blog posts so much, thank you GGG for starting one again! But my life over the last few months has been close to chaos, as far as some spare time is concerned. Not only working long hours at my new job, but a long commute on top of that, plus some freelance work that has come my way as well. I can't afford to loose my few freelance customers, because we never know these days with jobs. Plus I've been working for these customers for a few years now and I wouldn't like to let them down. So, this means that weekdays are nothing but work and weekends too short to do all the things I would like/need to do. Including gardening. And being here. So sorry to hear about you people troubles with health, pet losses and bad weather. I have had my share of bad news in the family as well as of late - the absolutely worst of all was the loss of a 34 years old cousin at the plane crash in S Paulo, Brazil, last month. He was returning home from a business trip when the plane crashed and everyone on board was killed. Even though they are across the Atlantic from us, we are quite close to that side of the family, so we were devastated. A young life, so full of promise. And almost 300 more... Makes us really wonder why do we get upset at certain minor things in our life... This week the news here have been all about Greece and the fires which are devastating the country. I wonder if you get this sort of news in the US? I mean, other than in CNN. It's been awful to follow the progress of the flames and the arsonists. More than 60 people have been killed so far, not to mention animals and entire crops and forests lost. This reminds me a lot of our Summer of 2003, where we had a very similar panorama here in Portugal, even though our loss in lives was nowhere near as bad as the one in Greece. I know you all are sensitive to these sort of things, so I ask you to keep the Greek people in your thoughts and prayers, because they sure need it now! On a happier note, and because this post is unusually gloomy for me, the garden is doing well, aided by the fact that our Summer has been quite mild so far. One ginger is actually in bloom and what a pretty bloom it is. I already feel a tang of Fall in the air which is unusually early for our climate. The sweet gum has even started to turn some colors and one of the branches of the firethorn hedge has red berries already! Hope you all which are under any sort of affliction get relief from it soon. I will try to keep posting on and off, but as I said, time is at a premium here at the moment. Take care you all! Eduarda

I built a beach house with Hiline Homes 2 years ago. I actually blogged about it specifically so people could see what our experience was like because I too could not find anything online. I haven't updated the blog with what the house has been like since we moved into it because I got burned out. But overall, I think the house was pretty solidly built. The build experience was far from perfect but that is also true of my sister's super high end build that I got to hear about going up as well. I will say the fixes and responses to getting things fixed on the higher end home were a lot better than what Hiline has done. But our house itself seems like a very good value to me. All inclusive with our land, permits, driveway, excavation/ground prep, etc, we paid about $118 per sq foot. With the builder we quoted with, the cost would have been $160 per sq ft. and the quality at that price would have been comparable to Hiline's since the builder also would have been using similar materials to get their quote that low. (By similar materials I mean the finishing touches like countertops, carpet, flooring, etc. They would have used the same construction materials, and in some cases, Hiline's construction materials were actually nicer.) So, I think you could go with one of these companies and come out okay, though I can only speak for one of them. We had a terrible project manager but he was fired after our build. Hopefully their next one is better.) Here's a link to my blog if you want to read about it. I always meant to go back and pull out the salient details that people would want to know, but I never did. So it's mostly an online journal, I'm sure it's incredibly painful to read! http://myhilinehome.com/