Plants I would trade teeth for: Abies alba 'Mlada Boleslav' Abies alba 'Pendula' Abies balsamea '961018' Abies balsamea 'Nana WB 3' Abies balsamea 'Nana WB 4' Abies fraseri Flyns Flash - although I think it would be better-grafted, low. Picea abies Rothenhaus Picea omorika Zdechovice Picea orientalis Schovenhorst Picea pung.Blaukissen Pinus cemb 3 Zinnen I wish I could grow flexilis. Pinus long. Shulman Grove Pinus mont. Sisk Mtn. Pinus mugo Koemann Franz Awesome. Thanks man. Dax

Wetsuitor: The only ones I dug up this year were 4 washies and a sago palm, each of which would take considerable protection here including heat. I will be leaving those in when they get 2 big to handle, but the washies seem to take root distubance very well and overwinter well indoors. There is of course some set back and it is slow to get growing in the spring, however I'm not ready to get into an elaborate heating system yet. I'm trying to work out my kinks this year on a trachy. Plus my wife would kill me if I had Jim's setup! I live in maybe the coldest winter 6a in America. This will be my 3rd winter here, the lowest low each of the past 2 years is -2, and -8F, HOWEVER, it is the norm to go 3 weeks at a time never getting above freezing. Last December and January, we had 9 days that got above freezing during the day, and most of those were in the 33-38F range for highs. We also had 2 3-weeks seesions of consecutive below freezing weather. The other problem is that I generally don't see grass from Dec.1 to mid-March, it never gets warm enough to ever melt the snow. Last year I lost 2 decent sized trachies and a sabal palmetto, and my minors and needle that survived received considerable damage, the minors burned 98%, the only things left were the emerging spears. Needle had spear pull with surving pups. That was with frost cloth wrapped unheated leaf cages, which provided 0-30% damage and no losses the year before.

Hi hillarie - sorry that I didn't see this sooner! I LOVE my Donna Sandra tops - they have a few amethyst type spots, but nothing really "sparkly". Do you have a pic of the slab? It's possible that this batch is different. I used to have pics on here... but for some reason the links look broken - I will try to fix. I will say that one of the best things about my tops is that it's hard to tell when they are dirty due to the movement in the stone... you really don't pick up easily on crumbs, spots, etc., which is so great with a husband and three small kids who can make a quite a mess :) Romy - thanks for your post! I am so glad you love your deep drawer - I still love mine as well! Do you have a reveal thread yet? Just from that little peak I would bet your new space is amazing!!

Okay, you can all come down for margaritas on the screen porch! The house is in RI and it's about 1-1/2 hours from our primary house. We had another house in the same area for about 4-5 years and then sold it and bought this one 3 years ago. We are very fortunate because we have a big yard (lots of wiffle ball games) and we're about 4 blocks from the beach. And now, we have water views from almost every window! Previously, the second floor was really tiny and the windows were small so you hardly knew we were near the water. Thanks for all the kind words! I really have to pinch myself because I never thought we'd have anything like this.