Marian - the paper size is 11"x17" for the course but I gather in 'real life' it would be at least 24"x36" or bigger... Mary - I have noticed the ads for the English Gardening School in the RHS magazine. And there are the RHS courses too... I guess one advantage of the U of G courses is you can just take the courses that interest you and they can count towards a certificate/diploma or not, as you like. So there no feeling that you didn't complete a program if you want to stop after just one course. The Internet format was ideal for me; it's just that the course content wasn't quite what I was looking for. I'll have to look around at options and then see whether I'm still in the mood to do something more once the gardening season is over for this year. Saucy - The reference to the clematises is in the verbal description of the plan. You need the plant list key to find them on the drawing (and the drawing posted here is too small to read the numbers anyway! :-) GB - I was going to consult with you about what ones to use but ran out of time and just named ones I was familiar with! The transparent house was interesting. I had to 'build' it from scratch with only the floor plan outline, the height of the walls as provided by the teacher, and the fact that there was a 2' roof overhang! It's not quite right I think on the back part of the house but good enough for the purpose of the assignment. The whole isometric drawing thing is actually quite simple to do - if a bit fiddly and tedious! You follow a straightforward process using fairly crude shapes for the plants (drawn to scale based on mature height and spread) and, when you put it all together, it produces that rather astonishing drawing - with zippo artistic talent required on my part! Since it was all done at a scale of 1/8" = 1' small details were killers to work with. It took me two days to draw that table and tuteur! Rotating things 30 degrees when they're that small and have so many lines (all those chair legs etc.!) is hard on the eyes... And since the technique produces a 3-D effect, I kept losing track of what was bottom and what was top as the little image seemed to have a life of its own and 'morphed' a lot :-) And tilting everything at 30 degrees started to 'get' to me - when I was reading something after working on the drawings for a while, the text of what I was reading seemed to be on a slant! But it was mostly fun - and good mental exercise :-) But now it's time to mess around in the real garden! I do hope to get out and measure things next week and do a proper scale drawing of the front garden and the changes I want to make there. (I suspect I may end up just 'winging it' as usual if spring gets underway quickly sometime soon and I run out of planning time....:-)

Being in a zone 5/6, I still move things around and plant things at this time of year. If I'm 'iffy' about it, I will plant pot and all. If bought, the size of the plant has a lot to do with my choice. I have 2 Azalea seedling which are 6 inches tall right now that will be going in with their pots, Yet I have an Azalea which is in a 2 gallon container which will go in the ground today. Zone hardiness of the plant also plays a factor in my decision. Anything just hardy to my zones is kept in the pots. Anything hardier goes in the ground. Time is becoming a factor for me as well. I have a holding bed where I place pots of plants which I may not have the chance to plant this fall. :O) As a side note, if your Big Sky Echinacea makes it through the winter, consider yourself a lucky person. There has been some heavy discussions on the Perennial Forum about these plants not being as hardy as labeled and not performing as well as they should. My Sundown came through the winter, stuggled through the spring, and bit the dust in the summer after struggling for two years...

HEAVE IS THE ONLY ISSUE ..... in the lands where the ground freezes .. and thaws .. repeatedly during the winter... plants that are not planted early enough ... will have a tendency to heave right out of the ground.. and freeze dry in the winter wind ... ergo ... move big clumps as late as you want.. because a big clump wont heave ... i don't divide down to single divisions as of 9/1 ... because they will HEAVE ... so .. dig up you big clump.. take off the sport ... and stick the clump back in the ground... presto .. all set ... the tiny plant .... plant it.. fill garbage bag full of leaves.. and after the soil freezes ... put the bag on top .. to insulate the frozen ground.. and keep it frozen ... and remove it in march ... just as the soil is thawing ... this is probably irrelevant for those in zones higher than 7 ... and only an issue for those in 6 or lower ... it seems like this is the millionth time i have typed this in the last week ... i would like to assign one of you to bookmark this post ... and link for the next person who asks the same question .... rotflmbo ... just kidding ... ken PS: Bunnn.. you are the new linker.. make note ... lol ...

Greetings again, all, As I said in the earlier post, my (I like that "my"!) librarian said that they have that book in that small rural library, and I don't know whether she meant in the system as a whole - that involves over 15 libraries, I think, in our county. I remember that an older sister of a girl that I used to go with in high school told me after she'd left home and I'd written her that she liked getting a letter from me - that it was like talking to me. I think that you'll find that, once you start the memory tap flowing ... that other memories will come crowding in, and it'll rather surprise you: I guess that memory banks produce some interest. Jannie ... don't sell yourself short, please ... see, even a short message from you piqued the interest of a couple of other readers among the rather small number who have posted. jodi ... and others ... how about a tape recorder? gayle marie ... don't bother with a shrink - come here. And ... we're free! Kidding aside, many have found that ideas that they've brought foward have produced some interesting and useful responses, including things that they hadn't thought of, and on occasion a different slant on a subject about which they'd done some thinking. When we get our books written ... ... they all get passed around here, via email, right? As they'd be too thick to post here. (Or would some of us be too thick to understand 'em?). ole joyful