I've always noticed and enjoyed looking at hostas. Unfortunately, I have to admit - like another poster above - that as a child I participated in 'popping' the flower buds. Shame on me! In my previous home/garden, we had some 'green and white' hostas that had been planted by either the previous owner or the builder/landscaper. I moved them, divided them, etc., but never added to the collection or even thought about getting different ones --- I don't think I really ever paid attention at the nurseries to just how many different varieties there were. And I certainly never knew that some would be happy in sun! I was gardening and planting, but hostas just weren't on my radar. When we moved into this house 5 years ago, I planted a little Japanese Maple and decided I wanted to fill out the bed around it right away because I know they don't like having their roots disturbed once they get established. So I was at Home Depot and saw some pots of Rainforest Sunrise. I thought - that will be a pretty contrast to the red leaves of my Bloodgood maple... so I bought them. I also saw some epimedium and decided to put some of those in that same bed. So the next spring when the hostas seemed to be taking a long time to appear, I started searching on the Internet for some info. I remembered how great Gardenweb was when we were building our house (couldn't have done it without the great info and pictures from people on the kitchen, bathrooms, flooring, appliances forums!!!). And I started reading the hosta forum, then the trees, shrubs, etc.... And my eyes were opened to these amazing hostas, and now I fear I'm hooked. I greatly expanded my beds last fall and so I've been making plans for planting this spring/summer. And thanks to you all, I have a pretty good list of hostas, and some companions, that I hope to get asap. So far, in the ground I only have 3 varieties: the Rainforest Sunrise, Cathedral Windows and Rhino Hide. In pots I have: Blue Mouse Ears, Fire Island, Prairie Sky, Wheee!, and the sport I removed from RS last summer. Edit -- Also - thanks to you all, I won't be buying my hostas at Home Depot any more. The RS, so far, seem to be fine and healthy. But I'm glad I've had the opportunity to learn about HVX and the need to be careful of sources.

candler, Back in the Win 95 era I bought a flat bed UMAX scanner. Really a good unit and came with Adobe Photo. The UMAX wouldn't work on the 98 system and I went through a couple scanners and ended up with an Epson 2480. In the meantime, I had I purchased Abobe Photo Delux Home Edition 4. It is the best of 4 or 5 software imaging packages I've tried. I finished scanning black and white family photos for the years 1916 to 1966 just before Christmas. Not really difficult, just time consuming. If you spend a little time learning your software you'll be surprized what it can do. For example, half of a B&W photo is in shade. So, with your image software you trace the shaded portion to define the working area and then begin to lighten and increase the contrast until it matches or comes close to the unshaded area. Creases in the photo can be overpainted with the clone function. Select the color or pattern at the crease and use that to paint over the crease. And the list goes on. It is astounding what can be done. Some will tell you that if the detail is not in the photo then there's nothing that can be done to enhance it. Don't believe it. I have copied eyes from one photo and pasted into another; change portions of the background that contain farm equipment or the neighbors dog. Get a decent scanner with a decent speed. Nothing is so frustrating as waiting for the thing to do what its supposed to do. Use the image software that comes with it and if it won't do what I've described, go to plan B. Hang in there. Its a wonderful project you're starting. Bob Central Arizona.

I found the info and will paste at the end of this post but the picture can be pretty big. salbwil just tell us what program you are using to resize and right click on the picture and click properties on the drop down menu and tell us what size it is. Here are the posting instructions from the webmaster at hearth.com: OK, so hereÂs the deal - your member photos (in your member profile) is limited to a small size - about 150 pixels (dots) square. The little Avatar next to your posts is limited to the same or maybe 100 each way..... Regular pictures, like in this forum, can be fairly large - almost full screen (1000 wide by 1000 high) and up to 200KB (200,000 bytes). But, many folks donÂt know the basics of email and web pics - IÂll try to explain. Pictures sent to the web and by email are best at what is called "screen resolution" meaning that they somewhat match the size od the dots on our monitors. For our purposes, this is aout 72 DPI (or dots per inch)..... What the average person needs is an "Image Management Program" and NOT the one that comes with Windows! If you are a PC user, download the free program called Picasa - This will organize and store all the photos on your disk and also allow you to export smaller copies (for web, etc.) and to even fix the photos up a bit! Apple users already have an image management program, iPhoto, which comes with every mac. To prepare web photos in iPhoto, simply select the photo or photos, go to Export (or it might say Share in newer versions) and when the dialog box comes up use the part that says "scale no bigger than" to select what you want the size of the exported photo to be. For purposes of this board, a photo with a width of 400-700 is ideal. Now, with Picasa, it is pretty much the same thing. Select the photo or photos and go to Export to Folder- the box shown in the picture below will come up and then you can select the picture size - say 480 wide as in this example. The other slider will compress the file size so the picture loads faster. In most cases, anything over 50% is good. If you want to learn more about this stuff, dig around on the links at: http://www.hearth.com/hcc/ - these are links from a course I teach at night school. If you are a user of Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, use the "Image Size" dialog bx to convert your photo to 72 DPI and approx. 400-600 pixels wide (the height will work out automatically) - then use "Save for Web" and tryjpg "medium", file size should be really small. Of course, donÂt save changes to the original picture since you still want that big on your computer and for yourarhiving and storage.

I had to look at your kitchen again and I know these are the cabinets I want and after my deadline, I will get a price from Home Depot. Thank you! Love the color also as it is white but not stark and I am glad you had white things in the picture to see this. Love the hardwood chosen also. I also love your Santos Mahogany floors and your doggie!