I can only agree with the remarks of both Jeri and Paul. ILC is an outstanding garden rose. The fall display of cherry tomato sized orange hips, red or mahogany canes, and foliage in chilly weather that turns purple on the undersides of the leaves while maintaining green on the upper sides all contribute to an ever-fascinating plant. While we are talking about beautiful things, I am reading 'Naming the Rose' by Roger Mann with photos by Yvonne Arnold and Paul Barden. The essays on names of roses have the kind of charm indicative of easy familiarity with all kinds of roses; the photos, especially those by Paul, are just drop-dead beautiful and would quaify as rose pornography, were there such a thing. The Arnold photographs are quite beautiful, but there is an intensity and luminosity in the Barden photos that captivates. BTW, I would urge those of you who have not yet looked at the 2009 VCRS Rose Auction Catalog to do so before it is removed from the website. Go to www.venturarose.org and scroll down to the icon. JimD JimD Here is a link that might be useful: The Ventura County Rose Society

I have to return my Sunset book to the library today, but I get to keep the others until the 21st. I went through it real quick and scanned pics of the flowers I liked the looks of so that I could remember what they are later. I will look up all the ones that were reccomended here later and see if I like the looks of them. But after looking through the Sunset book here are some of what I like: Penstemon Cransebill Daylily Lily-of-the-Nile Sage Santa Barbara Daisy Gazania Ice Plants Rosemary Trailing African Daisy Verbena Blue Star Creeper Any opinions of the plants that I like? I'm having a coworker of a friend come out this week to give me a bid of leveling out the right side of the hill and putting a retaining wall in so that one day I could put a hot tub up there. I may also find out how much it would cost to terrace the other side as well. I doubt I can afford to do both, and frankly the hot tub will have priority. :-) After my visit to the nursery I've been thinking about plant placement and whatnot. The man told me I should make everything symmetrical. That makes sense, but if I put the space for the hot tub on the right, then my lemon tree is no longer in the middle, and the big tree on the left hand side gives shade so the plants under there would have different needs than the plants on the other side. Also, what should I plant under the tree? The leaves fall and will need to get picked up, so it needs to be able to either withstand the leaves on top of it or with stand raking or me trampling on it with my blower/vacuum. Any ideas??? As for my wall and the drainage. I noticed in the middle of the wall at the level of my patio there is a small cut out about the size of a thumb or so. Could this be for drainage? There is another one over at the BBQ. Thanks again for all the help.

I had lost track of this thread. Pasture, I have a Gaggenau combi-steam oven over a Gaggenau single convection oven because they're designed so specifically to be stacked that they look totally ridiculous side by side. I'm tall enough that the big oven is only a little too low, and the steam oven, while technically too high, works because it's quite small and isn't meant to have things tended in an oven. The center of the big oven is more like hip level for me, and I really hate that. I still have to stoop to baste, lift up to counter level to bring things out, etc. I'm all for bending for bending's sake, but the stoop, bend, twist of using lower cabinets, rather than drawers, is magnified by dangerous heat with a lower oven. Rollout shelves probably help lower ovens a lot. A drawer set-up would be even better, so one wouldn't be burning the legs on the door trying to reach over it. I grew up with two counter high ovens in different locations in a tiny kitchen, and if I could have done the same without it looking totally goofy I would have done it in my current kitchen. That's one thing I do love about my Advantium on the other side of the kitchen. It's at the right level!! That said, lots of people love ranges! I think Follykid's wife's choice of the big gas range and 30" Wolf wall oven sounds like a great choice for her usage. CAROL, if your friends and family don't have ranges, ask them if any of their friends and family do. Ask the neighbors whose kitchens you don't know. And, for sure, find showrooms where you can try out the Bluestar and Capital, preferably installed and cooking. If you're nowhere near a showroom, it might even be worth a little trip to Eurostoves or another place that has both installed. Just don't guess!! Approximating from whatever range you can get to plus user experience here is fine, but don't be so enamored of the look that you don't even check to see if you're compatible. :)

150 is the limit, right? I'll go ahead and take it :) This is listed for 375 and I emailed the seller for a width measurement. I just love it! They call it by Dexter, but I think it's Drexel - only I can't find anything like it when I do a search. I only see Drexel's chinoiserie in black. This will be great for book and incidentals storage.