I JUST PURCHASED ONE OF THESE BEAUTIES FROM MY LOCAL NURSERY. FORTUNATELY THEY HAVE A PROFESSIONAL WORKING THERE, (they have a weekly radio program on gardening & have written several books), AND I GOT QUITE AN EDUCATION. THE REALLY COOL PART IS THAT THEY HAVE BOTH TYPES GROWING NEXT TO A DRIVEWAY AROUND THE NURSERY. THE ASIAN WAS OUT OF CONTROL TO SAY THE LEAST. IT HAD TAKEN OCER TELEPHONE POLS, TREES, POWER LINES. I AM NOT SURE THERE WEREN'T A COUPLE OF PEOPLE AND PETS IN THAT MESS! THE AMETHYST FALLS AMERICAN WISTERIA WAS QUITE CONTROLABLE AND LOOKED QUITE NICE, LESS THAT ONE THIRD THE SIZE AND THE SAME AGE. THEY TOLD ME TO EXPECT IT TO BLOOM FROM LATE SPRING REPEATEDLY UNTIL FALL. IT WAS HOT( FOR HERE) ABOUT 80 DEGREES AND I FOUND NO PEE SMELL, AND AFTER THE EARLIER POSTINGS I STUCK MY FACE RIGHT IN IT. I PLANTED IT IN THE MIDDLE OF AN ARBOR ABOUT 6 FEET WIDE AND TALL. I WAS TOLD THAT WITH MINIMAL ANNUAL TRIMMING, (LATE WINTER), IT SHOULD BE QUITE HAPPY THERE FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE. AFTER THAT I DON'T REALLY CARE). I HAVE PUT BIRD FEEDERS INCLUDING HUMMING BIRD, ON AND AROUND THE ARBOR, AND SO FAR EVERYBODY SEEMS HAPPY. I WAS WARNED TO WATER IT REGULARLY TO KEEP IT MOIST, ESPECIALLY THE FIRST YEAR SO THE ROOTS BECOME WELL ESTABLISHED AND TO FEED IT WEEKLY THE FIRST YEAR THEN MONTHLY DURING THE GROWING SEASON AFTER THAT. SO FAR, SO GOOD, BUT MY NEIGHBORS CAT IS VERY INTERESTED IN IT ALL. I AM GETTING MY AIR HORN OUT FOR THAT ISSUE. ANY OTHER SUGGESTIONS OR WAS I GIVEN BAD INFORMATION?

Wow you did your homework! This situation is ideal for the roses you're considering-- all love morning sun, and the afternoon shade reduces the fading of colors in the heat. I love your #3 list-- those teas and chinas should keep blooming even in the hottest weather, and your rootzones will be warm with the mass of that stone nearby. Old Blush is gigantic in zone 8, easily three times the size of the Duchesse--and she's not a small rose either. For a pop of color you might try a couple Sweet Chariot in here; it's a mini which makes a nice bushy lowplant and it would hang down the wall; it's a color that blends very well with the antique roses. Oops, I said it was a mini-- well, the bloom IS but the plant can spread to four feet here.

I haven't bought these particular sheets, and they sound very nice. When I was a young bride, I didn't know a thing about thread count and I bought a sheet set which was either 180- or 200-count. They were impossible to sleep on; were unbearably scratchy, no matter how many times I washed them in mild detergent *and* used fabric softener. Finally, after about a year (we were living on a shoestring then), I broke down and bought more, making sure I bought a higher thread count. Oh, the bliss! Not long ago, I came across a fantastic deal - 100% cotton, 600-thread count sheets *on clearance* for less than $40 at BJ's (a warehouse store). Dear hubby and I were needing a set of sheets for our Q-size bed, so I grabbed them, LOL. They are absolutely luxurious. They do tend to wrinkle in the dryer, so I always get them out just as soon as the dryer chimes and either fold them to put them away or put them on the bed immediately. Dear hubby hardly ever notices anything like that, but he has commented on how nice these sheets feel. Unfortunately, I don't remember the brand name that was on the sheets; I wish I did.

Rockybird, you had some childhood adventures didn't you?!? One of my sisters was always a wanderer as a child; back in the '60s parenting was definitely more free-range so she used to go all over our neighborhood unsupervised, which at the time was a relatively new development with lots of fields, woods etc. We lived in a military town which also meant lots of men around and I remember her at one point coming home to tell our mom that someone she met out in the woods was 'bothering' her. That turned out to be a guy who had been exposing himself to my 8-year old sister, repeatedly! OMG, I still recall how shocked and upset my mother was about that. She had no idea what had been happening and evidently my sister just wasn't fazed by the whole thing. Looking back as an adult myself she and my family are extremely fortunate nothing worse happened. Tish, nothing as serious as your story but here's another Bad Mother memory from my files: both my husband and I are/were not terribly interested in food and eating. We are both eat-to-live types and for a long time our dinners were relatively informal to say the least. Till one night when my daughter was ~7 YO she came to me just before bedtime insisting she was so, so hungry. I couldn't understand why until I asked my husband what he had fed her because I thought he'd taken care of that. He looked at me blankly, then asked what *I* had given her because he thought I'd done something for dinner! Talk about feeling awful...that was the start of my many year 5-night a week family dinner schedule (the other 2 nights were leftover and pizza nights). I never missed feeding the kids dinner again :). And while I'm here, one from parenting my son, teenage category. He, at my insistence, went to the senior prom. He wasn't dating anyone so took a girl who was a friend and he also told me the next day offhandedly that he had driven a group of kids home from the prom which was held on South Beach. A few days later I had gotten annoyed at something he hadn't done, homework I think, and was ripping him about being irresponsible, not doing what he should etc. He lost his temper and blurted out that 'driven a group' meant that all the kids he drove home were blind drunk and he was worried they would get hurt so volunteered to get them home safely which meant he had to drive literally to the south end of our county from the north end (SoBe) taking various people to their houses. Not only that, his 'date' ended up drunk-dialing her ex boyfriend to try to hook up with him while my son was taking her home then proceeded to vomit out the window of the car all the way to her house. I'll never forget my son saying to me 'mom, you have no idea what I had to do because I was the only one who wasn't blasted out of my mind!'. Talk about feeling like the world's worst mother!