I help maintain a Memorial Rose Garden through the local Garden Club of our small community. This can be seen at one of the many entrances to our town. Donations of money or roses are given to our President who is contacted either directly or through our City Hall. Special Garden stakes identify the rose and the Memory in which the rose was donated. There is a plaque infront of the bed with a picture of a gorgeous yellow rose identifying the garden bed as a Memorial Garden. We have future plans for benches and statuary throughout the garden. Our City has a Parks Management division who installed the bed. There are scholarships available to cities who want to beautify their area but I'm not sure who to contact about that. I hope I was SOME kind of help!

I think the odds of success here are best if grown in the ground unless you have a pot the size of a 4' or 6' diameter stock tank. To grow a giant cabbage, I'd think the following would be important: Very fertile, very well-enriched soil that both drains well and also holds moisture well. Moisture is going to be a key factor in growing a giant cabbage, but so is fertile soil. All the moisture in the world won't grow a giant cabbage if the soil isn't rich and fertile too. If I were doing this, I'd add a lot of compost---probably a bag or two if using purchased compost. More than adequate moisture. This is going to be hard in our climate. An inch of water a week would be the bare minimum and it may take a lot more than that to keep the soil moist at all times....at ALL times...and moist but not soggy, and never, ever dry. Full sun. Cabbages have to have at least 6 hours of sun a day and 8 would be better. In our climate, more than 8 might not be good once hotter temperatures arrive. If necessary, once the hot temps arrive, y'all could erect a shade structure lean-to type thing just west of the plant to shade it in the afternoon. Regular feedings with a balanced fertilizer, probably once every 10 to 14 days. Very wide spacing with nothing, nothing, nothing around it competing for water or nutrients. I wouldn't put anything within 3 or 4 feet of it, and would mulch heavily, probably with cardboard on top of the soil and some form of organic mulch on top of that. Don't allow any weeds to become established. As for protecting it, I'd start out with a cutworm collar and would spray the plant with Bt from day one and with great regularity to prevent cabbage moth damage. I'd sprinkle organic Slug-Go or Slug-Go plus on the ground to keep away the snails, slugs, pillbugs and sowbugs. I'd cover it with a lightweight floating row cover---the kind meant to protect plants from insects, not the heavier weights intended to protect plants from frost. I'd check it carefully every morning and every night. If it is not in a fenced in garden, I'd build a smallish fence in a circle around it, probably 4-5' in diameter and you could use woven wire fencing or chickenwire, but you'll need a deer netting or chicken wire top that can be easily removed by humans but not easily removed by clever wildlife. (I'd probably use clothespins to attach a bird-netting or deer-netting cover to the top, so I could easily remove the top to weed the plant, check the undersides of leaves for caterpillars, etc.) . If you have gophers, voles or moles, I'd sink hardware cloth into the ground as far as possible before planting, or plant in a huge container or in a raised bed with a bottom lining of hardware cloth. I wouldn't want to have to explain to a 3rd-grader that a rodent ate the plant! Have you been over to GardenWeb's "Growing Giant Vegetables" forum? I'd be surprised if this has not been discussed there before, although finding it via the search feature may be difficult. You could post your request for advice there and get expert answers from serious growers of giant vegetables. I think it will take 2 to 3 months to get a huge cabbage, and maybe longer. Do they have to finish this up before the school year ends? If they only gave the kids one plant, I'd find and plant seeds of the most gigantic cabbage variety I could find and grow a couple of those too as back-ups. I'd hate seeing a kid pin their entire hopes and dreams on one single plant. I've linked the Giant Vegetable forum below. Good luck. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Giant Vegetable forum at GW

Guys DO talk about the same things women do - but generally with other guys instead of women - at least in California. It might be different in NY. However, there is no reason to assume that the husband has any idea of what the wife did - it would be very easy for her to buy clothes for herself or other indulgences that the husband might think she actually could afford. I'll admit that most men have no idea how much women's clothes cost. For example, my boss once told a group of salesmen (who were selling high end furniture) that they should tell their clients, "Anyone can go into a store and buy a dress for $2,000 off the rack, but if you want a couture dress, you would have to go to a special salon and pay $20,000 for a custom dress." I'm not sure if that helped sell furniture, but it does illustrate the concept that prices for common items can vary greatly. She could also have investments that she keeps hidden. It's easier to hide things from men than from women. I think your husband should continue to ride bikes with his friend - and if he feels comfortable in bringing up the subject, he can. He could do it in a round about way - such as asking how his wife is doing. He doesn't have to refer to the article directly. From what you've said, there is little reason to be suspicious of the husband, although that does not mean (yet) that he was unaware of what she was doing. When I used to go bike riding with one friend, he would talk to me about pretty much everything - even about the one time he cheated on his wife. Lars

Annie - I've been slow to read messages online because my girls just graduated kindergarten - the other end of the spectrum - even though my friends and I are old enough to have high school grads. . . Ashley looks beautiful and happy. I was touched by the scholarship story. We founded a scholarship when my brother died at age 28 and it has been a surprising experience because two of the students who received the scholarship kept in contact with my parents, including a Vietnamese student who came to the US with nothing and later gave my parents a hand-carved tea set as a thank you. The last thing I ever imagined was my father having a genuine affection for someone from such a different culture. Later, a young woman from the same college moved in two doors from my parents and she has my brother's old job at the printing company where he worked . . . 17 years later. Talk about coincidences. (She remembers the scholarship although she wasn't a recipient.) Her daughter is the same age as my girls and they sometimes play together. I'm sure Ashley will always honor the memory of receiving such a special scholarship. She really seems like a special girl. Karen