Will my experience in TN and NC do? Fragrant Cloud is still my favorite HT. Once established it is a robust plant with great bloom production. The petals have heavy substance and the fragrance is incredible. Must be sprayed for BS in the South. I've grown it both grafted and ownroot. Just Joey - I have two ownroot in my garden. I've had it grafted also. Its winter tender, spindly and not all that productive. It does have the most incredibly beautiful fragrant blooms. I have it still because it was my mother's favorite rose. I'm about to pull both out and buy Martha (a sport of ZD) as a replacement tribute to my mother. Cherry Parfait - a sprawling, very productive bush that just pumps out blooms even in heat and drought. It is really more of a shrub than a grandiflora in habit. I love all the color variations in the blooms. No fragrance. Must be sprayed for BS in the south, although it has decent resistance. Peace - I have (finally) a good ownroot clone. Although its currently unhappy because I moved it. The bush is sort of awkward, but its hard to argue with the blooms. There is a reason this rose is so well known, and it is the beauty of the bloom. It is a robust bush once established, but requires very regular protection against BS.

Those clouds were pretty, but the storm that came through before them was not. I couldn't make it to the chit chat because my father-in-law had surgery earlier in the week, and all of my in-laws are staying at my house. In fact, we were at the hospital when the storm went through and the power went out. Pretty freaky to be in a hospital, just glad I wasn't in the elevator. About an hour after the storm went through I came home to find this: There was 2 inch hail all over the yard. We knew it was bad when we started to get close to the house and trees were down and there was so much hail it looked like it had snowed. The weird thing was that we had a hail storm go through 7/21/2008, so it was almost exactly two years to the date of that bad hail storm. Jen

Those are pretty. I love sky/cloud patterns and colors. I want to get some photos in the woods with the sun's rays shining thru the dimness of the tree shade. I'm not entirely sure the sun will ever shine here again. I may be waiting a long, long time for those sun ray photos;~)

Oldhouse1 and Beekeeperswife - Thank you for sharing your photos - your kitchens are beautiful! I don't expect mine to compare to yours - we are just doing a much-needed and long-overdue update which will hopefully make our home more marketable when we sell it in a couple of years. So we're trying to keep our costs down as much as possible so that we don't overimprove for the neighborhood. The warmth of Cloud White comes through in your photos, and I really like it with your countertops and floors. I know that white cabinets are classic and timeless, and I always like them in other people's kitchens. I just don't know why I'm suddenly second guessing how it will look in mine. Maybe because I have had brown cabinets for 30 years, and white is such a big change....