Josie, "The picture was this Summer but were all destroyed by the hurricane season." That's too bad. That was a nice looking bunch of zinnias. Remnants of a hurricane made it up here last Summer, but by the time it got to Kansas it was just some heavy rain and high winds of maybe 40mph. This is a picture of part of my zinnia patch this last Summer. As you can see, I use rebars and "zinnia cages" to help hold my zinnias up in storms that have high winds. Sustained winds of 30mph are rather common here. "I replanted a lot of zinnia seeds a month ago and nothing came up..." That's odd. Zinnias are usually quite good about coming up. "Now I will have to wait until February when the stores put out seeds for sale. Down here it is not like the rest of the country where you can find seed most of year." Have you tried buying seeds out of seed catalogs or from online stores? I got my Johnny's Selected Seeds catalog a couple of days ago, and you can also buy directly online. I also buy seeds from Burpee's, Park's, Harris, Stokes, and Hazzard's. Or, if you don't like to do online shopping, you could at least request a free catalog. Most major seed companies now have online seed sales. You get a wider selection that way. Companies like Johnny's have a lot of separate colors of zinnias, including some that are on your wanted list. If you requested a catalog from Johnny's, you could shop for seeds in the comfort of your living room or breakfast table. ZM (not associated with any product or vendor mentioned)

Yes, there are many plant diseases commonly called blight. See this entry on Wikipedia. With hostas, the disease known as "southern blight" is a fungus named Sclerotium rolfsii. You will need a fungicide which is specifically designed for this particular disease. It needs to contain flutolanil as the active ingredient. You should be able to order both the Scotts Contrast and the Bayer Prostar from a grain elevator or agricultural supply. Both products are rather expensive, but they will go a long ways and should last you several years. These fungicides can be applied every spring as a preventative, especially for those hostas which have been previously effected by the blight. Currently, you can purchase the Bayer Prostar on ebay (click here) and Amazon (click here). Other knowledgeable individuals (including Bill Meyer and Warren Pollock) have had good results with some other fungicides, namely, Terraclor (active ingredient PCNB) and Bayer Advanced Disease Control (active ingredient tebuconazol). You can read Bill's article titled "A Southern Blight Strategy" in the AHS Online Hosta Journal which is posted here. Warren Pollock also wrote an article in the Journal. Let me know if you'd like to read it...I can look it up.

Hi all, thanks for the kind words and feedback. Island chairs are from Carrington Court (NC), with COM: http://www.carringtoncourtdirect.com/detail.cfm?ProductID=798 CT is Cambria Torquay I really liked the idea of the light (particularly when I was in my grey kitchen phase), but it's been a pain to try to pick out a backsplash which coordinates with both tones. thanks shades_of_idaho! I have been playing with contrast and every now and then find something which just works. Great description :) wolfgang80 - I'm listening! I've found since I posted these pictures that the element I'm missing from the star and cross pattern, is the grout color. A thick grout in another color can make a huge difference.

The internet is terrible for comparing colors - everything looks different on every monitor, but from what I am seeing the Gray tile is a dark gray that leans green. The floor tiles are light, not white. They look to be a light yellow/orange - great next to the gray green tile. Then I look at your flooring sample and the lighter areas are pulling pink. Not great with the yellow orange tile flooring. It may not be quite as bad if we were not looking at it next to the orange under toned carpet. Either lay down a white sheet over the carpet or look at the flooring on top of the light tile and on top of the gray tile. It may still pull pink but may not be as pink without the carpet color. Still reads pink to me.