Oh my, that would be great, Susan! Oh, you're not awful at sending seeds out. I don't think I ever waited on anything from you. Hey, how about you and I do a trade? I can use lots of false nettle seeds, seriously. I would greatly appreciate it if you could send me some. I have Tropical MW seeds from last year or can wait until the ones that I brought in the house have seeds. The seed pods are pretty big, so I'd think that I'd have some before too terribly long. I could also send you some Salvia coccinea 'Lady in Red' seeds if you're concerned that yours might not reseed; that's up to you, but I have extra. I also collected some Vernonia altissima seeds...only I temporarily misplaced them. Ha. I'll find them eventually, really I will! You're so lucky to have all of that FN. I had planned on having a lot of plants and did up until a certain point. First of all, I don't think all of mine made it through the winter, and then the drought did in a lot more and left me with I think 8, or maybe 9. The one was "iffy", so I don't know exactly how many I did end up with then. They're in partial shade; I wasn't quite sure where to plant them. I think I'll let them where they are, replace the ones that died, and also plant some in another area that gets more sun and see which ones do the best...or maybe they'll both do fine. I really would like to raise some RA cats. It sounds like I have more trouble with my rue up here than you do there, Susan. I have mine planted in two locations, both of which get pretty much sun, but I wasn't sure where else to put it. I have a total of about 30 plants. This year I bet I replaced about half of them. They didn't come back from the winter. I don't know their extreme low temp that they can tolerate, but it got down to minus 15 deg. here, so maybe it was just a little bit too nippy for them. I think rue is such a beautiful plant; I hate that it makes me wheeze and makes me feel itchy (so does the Tropical MW). I didn't mind it at first, but I must have developed allergies to some of the plants that I have here. I don't know why but I had been thinking that the A. clematitis isn't hardy up here, but of course, you're right. I just looked and it said hardy to zone 6. I appreciate the info you gave on that and those other pipevines. Now I have some researching to do. I love reading about plants. You sure have a variety of pipevines. I have mostly all A. macrophylla right now. The PVS seem to love it, so I didn't really add anything else for them, but I suppose I will sometime, surely one or more of the ones you mentioned. I have a couple of A. serpentaria plants too from last year actually and STILL didn't get them planted outside. So now you know how slow I am! Ha. Yeah, that's kind of the case with me too, no more room in the inn. I'm not expanding the gardens. If I want to put something new in, I guess something will probably have to come out to make room for it. Let me know about the seeds, and if you want to trade, email me for my address. I need yours again too. I really could use the False Nettle seeds, and thank you for the offer. Cathy

Those hornworms grow into Hummingbird Moths which are amazing moths that look like baby humminbirds. If you don't have too many, I would leave them alone so they can grow up. The moths are just beautiful when you see their little beaks dipping into a flower. Their little wings move so fast, just like a hummingbirds.

Beagles said exactly what I was thinking. To be honest, your old hand drawn sketch was too difficult for me to really understand. I knew what you were trying to do - figure out if it would work. To see if your concepts were sound. I get that. But I can also understand how the more technical-minded folks on GW would get annoyed when your responses were brushing off what they considered to be the bones of your project. I read most of your posts (here and on th other forums) and it always seemed like you were saying "eh, we'll figure out if the house is going to fall over later...but look at my pretty inspiration pictures". (if that wasn't what you were saying I apologize but that's the impression I got) Not knowing if the bones are good enough seemed to be the big stumbling block in the lines of communication. You want to know if it'll look right and everyone else is trying to ask if it's even possible. But now with the new plan sketch it's much clearer to me what you're trying to do (maybe it's the engineer in me). As far as your first floor layout, I like it but I would consider shrinking the opening to the living room on the front wall and move the hall/coat closet into that corner by the front door. So when you do have guests coming in they don't have to walk to the center of the house to get their jackets. Your clawfoot tub bathroom is nice but I think that if you moved the sink to the common wall with your master bath then you could maybe add a small linen closet where the sink is now. That way guests wouldn't have to go into your bedroom space to get extra TP or towels or anything. Just some thoughts. I have no idea what to tell you about the roof lines and outside view of the home without seeing what your mock up looks like. I'm not good at picturing things in my mind. And macybaby I have a picture of myself looking much the same except I was covered in plaster dust from our demo. We haven't gotten to the mudding stage yet, but I'm sure I'll be covered from head to toe again. We knew going into our kitchen renovation that the sunporch would have to come off and be rebuilt. There was essentially no structure. As soon as we took the trim off we could see that the corners were made from 2x4's in an L shape...we thought we might have load bearing windows. No headers back there at all. The only we saved was the roof. Luckily we didn't find any other major damage in the rest of the kitchen that we didn't anticipate. We're tearing out the floor down to the joists and even some of those are going to be repaired (sistering new joists to them to even out the floor)...but again, we knew to anticipate this before starting. Our kitchen budget was roughly $25k (not including a 5% contingency) and I think we're going to come in at $26k. I consider that a success. Of course we were hoping to come in closer to $15k but we did all of our investigation work a head of time and knew what kind of budget we needed to do it right. Of course I would've rather been thinking about paint colors and stain for the cabinets but I kind of figured, why waste my time and tease myself thinking about the pretty stuff if I didn't even know we could afford it. And the only reason our kitchen is getting done in the budget we have is because we're also doing all the work ourselves (with the help of some friends). All the demo, framing, flooring, electrical, plumbing, drywall...everything.

Yes, TLB, a busy body who was welcoming & generous to you & forthcoming w/ info for you when you came as a newbie & still have been, to you w/ your odd questions. I've been here since Hoya forum started (under different names) along w/ the person I consider who founded this (Lesli/GA for those here long enough to remember). You've been here barely 4 yrs. looking to PROFIT off all those who welcomed you & taught you about Hoyas. Lovely, good luck w/ that. For those who don't know, while it was GW (pre-Houzz) there was a strict prohibition against advertising, which was enforced then. I've been unable to find their current Terms of Service, if any.