I don't have any gardenias Mike but I am trying to get a large system of raised garden beds into vegetable production. I'm also planting flowers. Not to mention planting a great deal of my potted trees in the ground and giving away what I don't have room for. Someone is coming over today to pick up a mature Algerian Clementine Mandarin in a 25 gallon pot. I'm hoping he will also take a 15 gallon Dancy Mandarin off my hands. I'm so far behind at this point that a lot of vegetables I was planning on planting will have to wait till the Fall. Yesterday I finished planting the onions that should have been planted in Oct-Nov. I still have many trees to plant that I have been trying to get into the ground since last summer. So far I have planted roughly thirty trees in the ground since last summer. All that said my trees are in bloom and beautiful and the bees are in the air, the sun is shining. Its seams like its taking forever but I still enjoy my garden and backyard orchard. My son will be helping me all day today. I would say the chances are good that 2-3 more trees will be planted today. I picked up a good sized Oro Blanco Grapefruit and some Numex Big Jim pepper plants last Friday. I'm broke and I'm feeling twice my age but life is good.

sshrivastava, unfortunately, the real reason that appliance and detergent manufacturers are unable to answer questions accurately or produce informative manuals is that the general public in the US is not interested in these things. Most people want a washer and detergent that will "clean" their laundry in 30 minutes, and dry the load in the same amount of time. They really don't care if the water is heated or not, if the detergent residue is rinsed out or not or if the detergent has OBs or not. All they want is for their laundry to be magically cleaner looking and smelling "fresh". In my mind, it is the average consumer who drives the level of information and service available. In other words, we get what we deserve. And I'm saying "we" in the general sense, not we as posters on this board. This is the only place where I have met people who care about their appliances and cleaning products enough to research and agonize over smallest details ;-)

Our house is a late 1970s ranch. It is 1675 sq ft and has 7 windows. One per room - except the family room that has a 6 ft slider instead. In the kitchen, which is right next to the family room, there was a cloth valance when we moved in. Last fall, as the days got shorter, I realized that the valence was blocking a lot of light that I needed. I went online and found a stained glass panel that was made with mostly uncolored, obscured glass. I put it at the top of the kitchen window where the valence had been. The obscured glass gives us privacy so that the house next door does not look into the kitchen so much, but lets the light into the room. I have de-cluttered a the request of the cleaning lady. She wanted to dust fewer things, so some things went down into the basement. I recently purchased a big leather couch from Craig's List. It replaced a chair and a love seat that were in the family room. The love seat was always covered with a slipcover. Between DH and the dogs, the slipcover was always askew, so it looked frumpy and cluttered. Now, the family room is neater with the couch and two chairs, instead of the love seat and three chairs. Everyone comments at how much more comfortable and neater it looks. Sometimes few big pieces of furniture make a small space work better than many smaller ones. When we moved the TV, CDs, tapes, and stereo components into a big 5 ft x 2 ft x 5 ft high cabinet, the loss of clutter made our tiny living room in our last house feel bigger. When I was shopping for furniture, I discovered a new pet peave - big rolled furniture arms that doubled the size of a chair. I don't know whose house they were made for, but those furniture sets with the huge arms made huge wasted space in a family room the size of mine. I settled on a couch with medium sized rolled arms, as I like the comfortable feel, but did not want to waste so much space.

I hope it's not being discontinued! I did see it at Big Lots this past weekend come to think of it...Not exactly a good sign. I'm with Larsi as I also didn't like the scent of the original version of Purclean. I haven't tried the reformulated version but agree the scent seems much lighter now. Overall, Purclean is an excellent detergent that actually got a little higher score than Tide Original he Turbo from Consumer Reports. I'll check my local stores this weekend. Unfortunately, there are no Vons/Safeways in my neck of the woods.