That is one of the little known aspects of industry. There are many products in circulation today that are not made by the company that claims the brand and sells them. I have worked in many places where multiple brands, some competing, were being made in the same equipment. I know that in the late 60's Pontiac, Olds, Buick were made on the same assembly line, Often one following the other down the line. I worked in a grocery store once and spent about 20 minutes listening to a woman telling me how much better one brand was than the store brand. I know the bottling company ran out of the store brand containers and made an emergency shipment in their own brand containers so we had the product. Many companies do not have manufacturing facilities. Their purchasing department purchases the parts and sends the parts,specs, and drawings to a third party for assembly. I have even interviewed at small pharmaceutical companies that do the same thing. So it makes little sense to say you think Bolens is the same quality as Cub Cadet, just because it is coming from an MTD plant, UNLESS you know who is the designer, specifier, and purchaser of the parts the went into the item. NOTE: Bolens and Cub Cadet are examples, as I have no knowledge to the item your are talking about.

Hey everyone, I will not be able to come to the swap this weekend. I just got back from the vet and my doggie is not doing so well...apparently her spine is degenerating....anyway I can't leave her alone all day. For anyone that I was trading with I'm very sorry but hopefully I will make it to the next swap. If anyone is in the Miami area or passing through and would like to pick up their plants I am available and we can make a bar-b-que out of it.

tj, thanks for your observation. Checking this morning (nice rain now) there are two eyes which have half their leaves trying to do much more white border. Looking up the Hosta Library, this could be the progeny 'Ice Follies' developing. This would be a nice separate plant in the future. I did not even realize that going on, because my eyes were overwhelmed by the lamium. I removed the lamium, and found pachysandria and weeds colonizing around and under the hostas under cover of the lamium. Now there are the hostas much better showing. Stalks of columbines will be cut back after they finished blooming. Bernd

Hi, Sandy! I'm Bonnie, and I live in "dirt"... uh, I mean Silt. Spend a lot of time in Rifle, since we don't have a grocery store, or much else for that matter, but as you said we are growing fast due to the gas industry. I'm glad we bought a house on the north side of the river, as the wells seem to be mostly on the south side ... for now anyway. Welcome to the RMG forum! Have you been gardening here long?