Maybe it's 'Black and Blue', Pat? Or maybe 'Victoria' (a.k.a. 'Victoria Blue')? My officinalis has never bloomed for me, but maybe this is the year! :) Geez, you must have really messed up your knee Westelle! What happened?! (I have 2 bad knees, so I feel your pain! :D) Not sure about cutting back the butterfly bush now, Leslie. I usually whack mine back to 18" in late winter/early spring. My pansies are pretty thrashed, too. Farewell, happy darlings! I'm excited about planting some more Portulaca this year, since mine don't reliably reseed. Talk about a happy plant, especially in full, hot sun with little water! The last few days I've planted a Berberis thunbergii 'Crimson Pygmy' (Japanese barberry), Callistemon viminalis 'Little John' (weeping bottlebrush), Calylophus 'Southern Belle' (sundrops), and Caryopteris x clandonensis 'Dark Knight' (blue mist). Today, I need to get a couple more things in the ground - Coreopsis grandiflora 'Early Sunrise' and Juniperus sabina 'Buffalo'. Then I'll only have about 8 or 9 more to deal with. LOL I love getting my nails dirty, though! Most of the Salvias you'll find at Lowes will do great in full sun, I think. I'm hoping they get some 'Black and Blue' soon, so Mom can pick one up! She always leaves drool trails on mine when she visits. LOL Brenda

I've placed a few dozen Pentair variable speed equipment sets into service since they came out. The oldest is probably 4 years old this summer. I had my best luck with the 4x160 controlled by an Easy Touch 8. The VS3050 controlled by an Intellitouch 7 or 9 was way over my buyers heads in grasping the technology the controller offered. They had difficulty following the menu's for configuration. I'll admit they offer a bunch of avenues but IMO it's total overkill for residential pool customers. I only had a few service calls on the units and have no idea what the problems were because I just dispatched the call to my local Pentair rep and they handled them. To their credit they were a lot more prompt than they used to be back in the late 90's and early new millennium. I switched to Jandy in summer 2000 because of the poor after the sale warranty support from Pentair back then. It was a shame 'cause I was a long time dealer for PacFab before Pentair took the line. I've only placed 7 or 8 of the new E-pump equipments sets from Jandy and had 2 service calls on them, one I ran was a cracked impeller and the other I'd have to ask my super what the problem was. I suppose I'm the last builder on the planet to jump on this bandwagon, I still prefer a 2-speed for those looking to enjoy electrical savings, guess I'm just old school. This pool isn't going to be an E-pump, we were working within a budget and I had to achieve as many of the things they wanted in that select amount. See ya, Kelly

It's not a stamping block that I'm after, but thanks for that, Patti. I posted a link to what I'm after. I realized as I was looking at it that the price is right there - so now I'll revise my question - does anybody have any of these kicking around that they aren't going to use that they could sell me? Suzan J Here is a link that might be useful: Kreator's Blok

Thanks, all. The market here is quite hot, though I suppose it could cool in the next year. I doubt it, though-- it seems like more people want to live closer in and have shorter commutes and we are within a couple of miles of a new high-tech employment area, near the university, and not far from downtown. I talked to a neighbor recently with a very similar house. She has a realtor (lets call her Realtor #1) she's worked with for decades who only works in this area. Realtor #1 gave her very specific recommendations for what to do in advance (she plans to sell in August), and told her that her house would probably sell in 3 days. So I'm thinking we won't list until we are truly ready to go, which depends mostly on precisely when we decide to retire. I think we will probably wait a month or two and get some "known" issues taken care of, then set up something will Realtor #1. Then I suppose to be responsible, we'll have to find Realtors #2 and #3 as well. Although to be honest, I wouldn't mind skipping that... I guess I understand the criteria for selecting someone with a good track record of short times on market, etc. But when inventory is low and demand is high, what do you look for in an agent? Is it different?