Thanks, everyone - That last picture of the first time I ever wintersowed was exciting but confusing because i didn't label each clump (thinking I could remember what was what) and now I really know better and wintersowing has taught me (through experience) how to identify certain seedlings... clarejoe - Morning sun/afternoon shade - but I think Penstemon really likes full sun, but had no choice that year. Now mine are in complete full sun and this year I am waiting for Mystica to bloom for the first time.. Yay! Carrie

Vera, You're scaring me! :-) "Big Head" is definitely going to be cut for flowers or the point before it goes to seed...most definitely...and then, it's getting watched real closely for signs of "bully-ism". Tiffy, The big leafed plant with the purple edge is Coral Bells Purple Palace (at least I'm 90 % sure it is). I did WS Ligularia "Othello" last year, planted it out in the fall, but I don't see it at all this year. I'm not sure if it survived. I did two other types of Ligularia this year, one was "clivorum" rather than "dentata". That one has a little sprout and I'm nursing it carefully (and afraid to transplant it yet. I probably should just go for it and put it out-- but out of all the seeds in the packets for the two different varieties, I only have one seedling.) PV, The shade garden is just starting to do it's thing...the white Astilbes are just starting to come out. I figure the shade garden will be ready for a picture in a day or two. I'm thinking of getting some white Stargazer lillies to put there and move the pinkish/orange ones to the patio bed. What do you think? Drippy and Rosepedal, Thanks so much for the comments :-) I do like that Malva...it's one of the things I can depend on popping up and giving me something nice to look at while I wait for other things to bloom. I have Mystic Merlin seedlings, but I'm still trying to figure out where to put those. I don't want to put them close to the Zebrina because I had Zebrina before, and it seemed to meld into looking just like the Zebrina the following year. Funny how that happens. (I hope it warms up for you, Barb). Linda

For those that see the little face try this its kinda neat. The original picture i took which is the smaller picture was uploaded to photo bucket the size is 320x 240 . When uploaded to forum i enlarge from 320x240 to 640 x 480 as you can see everything looks normal (no face). Now for those interested try to follow me . Put your mouse over the SMALLER picture and copy and paste to hardrive and then enlarge the picture the face is still there and distorts as expected but still there mostly. Now try this, copy and paste to hardrive the large picture and you need adobe photoshop or some other hardware to shrink picture as you do this you can see the face appear. I dont know a lot about how all this picture stuff works, but it perks my curiosity as to why the face does not show in the larger picture when enlarged in photobucket and uploaded to forum. But when the larger picture is shrunk down the picture starts to appear on ones hardrive. Anyways in keeping with forum policy and talking about fig trees it did go thru its coldest dormant winter in garage and when i recently looked at it it looks ok as i peeked under the old bedsheet its covered with. Cant wait till spring.

Hi Rose, it's the living room. We thought about opening that wall and switching the living and dining rooms, but it was a bit too complicated dealing with 3 doorways that would be affected. (The house was built as a funeral home and there are doorways everywhere downstairs. In the dining room there are 7!) Yes, on the space to the sink side. The new space is 6 feet plus what we gain from building over or around the stack and chase. The hoosier plus lower drawers would leave us with a couple of feet or so for a rack for leashes, jackets. There would be 40 to 42" inches of uppers beginning around the dishwasher for glassware and stuff to hide. Except for the one to the right and then over the fridge, we're thinking we'd go with open shelves otherwise. With so many doors (4 exterior) we've been trying to reroute everyday traffic to one of the other doors.