Here's a few of my newbie Munson's blooming, most are FFO's. FFO on Thais This is not Commissar's FFO, but just look at it showing off, and it's brand new to my garden this season, too! FFO on Royal Heiress FFO on Panama Scarlet, love this deep red one. Rebloom on Belgium Chateau. Thanks for looking, hope you enjoy them. Jan

deanie I did the exact same thing and had similar experiences. You have to put yourself in their shoes - how can they possibly give you an exact number without knowing the specifications for the house and what your quality requirements are for the finishing materials? I used the square footage ball parks for rough budgetary planning. The contract price won't be known until you have a plan (so they can do a take off) and you have made selections on the finishing materials. The end cost won't be known until the house is finished. Note that many posters on the GW have had a large (10 to 20%) difference between the contract price and the finished cost. I would use the ballpark numbers to get an idea of the range of house you might possibly afford. If you can barely afford a certain square footage now at the planning stage - then beware - becuase the house will likely cost much more than your ball park estimate. The residential builders have volume on their side to keep costs down. They do have higher overhead, but don't assume that custom means lower cost. Custom building is at least the same cost (but usually higher) than large residential builders for the equivalent square footage. But a custom builder customizes the product to your requiremments and should provide much better quality (assuming you pick a good builder). Residential is a production line, with a limited set of menu options,and quality that can range from crap to decent. The ball parks you have sound reasonable for Tenn. Just add 20% to the highest number you have received and that should be good enough to determine if what you want to build is possibly achievable. If you can't make the the budget close with this - then you might either pick a smaller house plan or think about trades on materials (like siding vs brick/stone). Also - keep in mind that there may be more costs that are not included with the builder square footage numbers. They may be quoting you costs for the structure only. Ask them if the ballpark figures include everything including site development (lot clearing, septic, driveways, etc). I found that most of the builders quoted me square footage numbers that did not include these items - and they can be significant depending on your lot and utility situation.

Report of prostate biopsy due in a couple of days. Daughter called on Easter morning - the best Easter present. When I suggested that if I got bad news at the biopsy report ... that I'd have a great deal of work dealing with the messy house ... ... and she laughed: said that most folks, informed of limited life expectancy, would be talking of travel ... visiting family, etc., etc. ... ... and with Dad ... it was dealing with messy house, not leaving it for survivors to cope with! Which reminds me ... I've thought for some time that one of the things that I must add to the "Last wishes" folder ... ... is to write down Gardenweb's address, so son can inform folk here of Dad's mouth being closed ... finally! Fingers no longer keyboarding. ole joyfuelled ... who figures that life should be taken seriously at times ... and not too, at times ... P.S .... but one thing's for sure: no one's gonna survive it ... ... what's that you say: that they're figuring ways for folks to live pretty well forever? No kidding! That'll mean - no more kids ... no more grandkids! (of which I have none: end of the line for my branch of the family) And the world, with 7 billion or so, going on 10 ... will become so heavy ... that it'll fall out of orbit, for sure! o j

Thanks everyone for the nice comments. Julia , the dark coloring maybe from the clay the plants grow in .I gave up trying to amend and turn what is a very heavy clay soil into friable soil so when we get sufficient water the clay is a very rich planting medium ........however when we get droughts ........the ground can and is like cement . Cracks open up that can swallow your foot no problem. The daylilies survive for the most part. Although this year I have had to up root some and pot up in order to have them survive. Once a plant get acclimatized and starts to really grow then it is pretty hard to kill it .